Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

Module No. 1

MODULE TITLE
HISTORY OF ICHTYHOLOGY

MODULE OVERVIEW

This chapter discusses the origins of the science of ichthyology. Fishes are fascinating and
diverse and what we know about their diversity is the product of the efforts of workers worldwide
(i.e., early ichthyologists) over several centuries. Students in an introductory course often have
difficulty appreciating historical treatments of the subject. However, science is a human endeavor
and knowing something about early ichthyologists, their activities, and their contributions to the
storehouse of knowledge that we possess today should help give a sense of the dynamics and
continuity of this long-established science.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this chapter, the student shall be able to:

1. Discuss the origins of ichthyology;
2. Identify the early ichthyologists and their contributions that helped in the
development of the field of ichthyology.

LEARNING CONTENTS

History of Ichthyology

Ichthyology has its origins in the writings of Aristotle (384-322 BC). Aristotle made observations
that allowed him to distinguish fish from whales and to recognize about 117 species of fish. He was
the first to discover many basic facts about fish, such as that the sex of sharks can be determined
from the structure of the pelvic fins (i.e. male sharks have claspers) and that certain sea basses change
sex as they grow older (i.e. they are called sequential hermaphrodites).
Aristotle distinguished about 500 species of animals, arranging these in the History of
Animals in a graded scale of perfection, a scala naturae, with man at the top. His system had eleven
grades of animal, from highest potential to lowest, expressed in their form at birth: the highest
gave live birth to hot and wet creatures, the lowest laid cold, dry mineral-like eggs. Animals came
above plants, and these in turn were above minerals. He grouped what the modern zoologist would
call vertebrates as the hotter "animals with blood", and below them the colder invertebrates as
"animals without blood". Those with blood were divided into the live-bearing (mammals), and the
egg-laying (birds, reptiles, fish). Those without blood were insects, crustacea (non-shelled –
cephalopods, and shelled) and the hard-shelled molluscs (bivalves and gastropods). He recognized
that animals did not exactly fit into a linear scale, and noted various exceptions, such as that sharks
had a placenta like the tetrapods. To a modern biologist, the explanation, not available to Aristotle,
is convergent evolution.
Unfortunately, for nearly 2,000 years after Aristotle, few original observations about fish were
recorded because Aristotle was considered to have completely covered all areas of natural history.
Aristotle’s grip on ichthyology (and science) was finally broken in the 16th century by natural

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Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

historians such as Pierre Belon (1517-1564), H. Salviani (1514-1572), and G. Rondelet (1507-1566).
In summary, Belon published a natural history of fishes in 1551, in which he classified about
110 species according to anatomical characteristics, especially body shape and size. From 1554-
1557, Salviani published sections of a treatise on Italian fishes in which 92 species were described
and illustrated. Rondelet in 1554-1555 published books that summarized much of what was known
about fishes at the time. Essentially, Belon published the first modern systematic treatise on fish,
Salviani the first regional faunal work, and Rondelet the first ichthyology text.
Knowledge of fishes subsequently expanded rapidly, stimulated in good part by the discoveries
and reports of naturalist explorers. Preeminent among them was Georg Marcgrave of Saxony (1610-
1644), whose Natural History of the Fishes of Brazil was published posthumously in 1648. The
knowledge of European fishes also continued to grow, so when the English naturalists John Ray
(1627-1705) and Francis Willoughby (1635-1672) published their Historia Piscium in 1686, they
could describe 420 species, including 178 new species, and arrange them in a reasonable
classification system.
Works such as these are perhaps most important because they were the foundation upon which
Peter Artedi (1705-1734) built the classification system of fishes that has earned him the title of
Father of Ichthyology. Artedi also critically reviewed the previous literature on fishes and
recommended standard measurements and counts that are still the basis of fish taxonomy. Artedi
drowned in a canal in Amsterdam before any of his studies were published, but his notes and
manuscripts were purchased by his good friend Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778).
Linnaeus edited this material and issued it in 1738. He adopted (and eventually changed, not
always for the better) Artedi’s classification of fishes for the 12 editions of his own extraordinary
Systema Naturae, which became the basis for all future classification systems.
Systema Naturae is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and
physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system,
now known as binomial nomenclature, was partially developed by the Bauhin
brothers, Gaspard and Johann, 200 years earlier, Linnaeus was first to use it consistently throughout
his book. The first edition was published in 1735. The full title of the 10th edition (1758), which was
the most important one, was Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines,
genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis or translated: "System of nature
through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with
characters, differences, synonyms, places".
Although natural historians in most cultures have studied fishes for millenia, modern science
generally places its roots in the works of Carl Linne (Linnaeus). Linnaeus produced the first real
attempt at an organized system of classification. Zoologists have agreed to use the 10th edition of
his Systema naturae (1758) as the starting point for our formal nomenclature. The genius of
Linnaeus’ system is what we refer to as binomial nomenclature, naming every organism with a two-
part name based on genus (plural genera) and species (singular and plural, abbreviated sp. or spp.,
respectively).
The first attempt after Artedi’s to organize the expanding knowledge of fishes was that of
Marc Elieser Bloch (1723-1799) of Berlin. Remarkably, Bloch did not begin publishing on fishes
until he was 56 years old and he then published a series of volumes on fishes of Germany and the
world. His Systemae Ichtyhologiae, with a revised classification system, was edited by J.G.T.
Scheneider (1750-1822) and issued in 1801. The massive volumes of Bloch were the standard
reference works on fishes, until the publication of the comprehensive volumes written by Georges
Cuvier (1769-1832) and his pupil (A. Valenciennes) between 1828-1849.
Cuvier and Valenciennes not only compiled and classified the known fishes, but conducted
many detailed studies of fish anatomy, which greatly improved the understanding of fish
interrelationships.
In the first volume of Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (1828), Cuvier provided a fascinating

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Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

and accurate early history of ichthyology. This history was recently translated into English and
edited, with updated footnotes, by T.W. Pietsch (1995). The influence of Bloch and Cuvier on
ichthyology would probably have been less if the French Revolution had not cut short the studies of
B.G.E. Lacepède (1756-1826), who was consequently obliged to compose five-volume work on
fishes largely from memory and rough notes. Much of his immediate successors’ time seems to have
been spent correcting the errors he made.
Nearly all that was known about fishes during the first half of the nineteenth century was
summarized by Georges Cuvier and his pupil and successor, Achille Valenciennes, in the
monumental “Histoire Naturelle des Poissons”. It contains descriptions of 4,514 nominal species,
the greater portion, approximately two-thirds, written by Valenciennes after the death of Cuvier in
1832. Today the work of Cuvier and Valenciennes is indispensable to systematic ichthyology.
While such general works on fishes were being composed, the detailed studies of fish
anatomy and physiology were also proceeding, resulting in Alexander Monro’s The Structure and
Physiology of Fishes Explained and Compared to that of Man and Other Animals (1785). In the
early 19th Century, the most important ichthyological works were descriptions of regional fish
faunas.
Other works that followed were the following:

Author Title of Work Region

Samuel L. Mitchill The Fishes of New York, North America

(1764-1831) Described and Arranged
(1815)
Constantine Rafinesue (1783- Ichthyologia Ohiensis (1820)
1840)
Sir John Richardson Fauna Boreali-Americana Pacific Coast of North
(1787-1865) (1836) America
Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) Treatise on Fishes of Brazil Brazil
(1829)
Series of volumes on Fossil
Fishes (1833-1844)
Johannes Müller (1801-1858) Revised Agassiz’s ideas on
fish classification
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) Further improvement of
classification system, and
who were all influenced by
Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) ideas of Charles Darwin

Edward Cope (1840-1897)

Theodore Gill (1837-1914)

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Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

Albert Günther Worked at the British Museum Fishes from all over the British
(1830-1914) to produce the 8-volume Empire
Catalogue of Fishes in the
British Museum
George Boulenger Catalogue of freshwater Africa
(1858-1937) Fishes of Africa (1909)
David Starr Jordan Fishes of North and Middle North and Middle America
(1851-1931) America (four volumes, 1896-
B.W. Evermann 1900)
(1853-1932)
David Star Jordan Guide to the Study of Fishes
(1905), a standard ichthyology
text of early 20th century

Charles Reagan Ichthyology became more

(1878-1943) diverse with ecology,
physiology and behavior
shared the field with anatomy
and systematics
Most classification schemes
today are ultimately rooted in
those of Reagan (1929) and
Berg (1940)
Leo S. Berg (1876- Russia
1950)
Carl L. Hubbs (1894-
1979)
William Eschmeyer New compilation of fish
species of the world (1998)
Nelson New classification system
(1994)

The major force in American ichthyology was David Starr Jordan. He moved from Cornell
University to the University of Indiana and then to the presidency of Stanford University. He and his
students and colleagues were involved in describing the fishes collected during explorations of the
United States and elsewhere in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition to a long list of papers,
Jordan and his co-workers, including B. W. Evermann, produced several publications which form
the basis of our present knowledge of North American fishes. This includes the four-volume The
fishes of North and Middle America (1896–1990) which described all the freshwater and marine

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Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

fishes known from the Americas north of the Isthmus of Panama. Jordan and Evermann in 1923
published a list of all the genera of fishes that had ever been described, which served as the standard
reference until recently, when it was updated and replaced by Eschmeyer (1990).

LEARNING POINTS

Key Figures to Remember

1. Peter Artedi or Petrus Arctaedius (27 February 1705 – 28 September 1735) was
a Swedish naturalist and is known as the "father of Ichthyology." Intending to become
a clergyman, he went, in 1724, to study theology at Uppsala University, but he turned his
attention to medicine and natural history, especially ichthyology, a science that he
influenced greatly.
2. Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné , was a
Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist who formalized binomial nomenclature, the
modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".
3. Guillaume Rondelet (1507 – 1566). His major work was a lengthy treatise on marine
animals, which took two years to write and became a standard reference work for about a
century afterwards, but his lasting impact lay in his education of a roster of star pupils who
became leading figures in the world of late-16th century science.
4. Hippolito Salviani (1514–1572) was an Italian physician, scholar and naturalist, noted for
his Renaissance book Aquatilium animalium historiae, depicting hundreds
of Mediterranean fish, some from Illyria, and a few mollusks.
5. Joseph S. Nelson, author of Fishes of the World, is a standard reference
for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview
of the diversity and classification of the 30,000-plus fish species known to science.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Identification. Put the correct answer on the space provided.

____________ 1. Father of ichthyology

____________ 2. Origins of ichthyology and arranged animals in a graded scale with man at the
top.
____________ 3. Wrote the first text on ichthyology
____________ 4. Published the first modern systematic treatise on fish
____________ 5. Published first regional faunal work on fishes
____________ 6. Formalized the binomial nomenclature and wrote Systema Naturae, which
became the basis for all future classification systems
____________ 7. Wrote the English translation of the first of Cuvier’s five-volume Histoire des
Sciences Naturelles
____________ 8. Wrote Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (1828) which was about fishes during the
first half of the nineteenth century; it was written together with his student A. Valenciennes
____________ 9. Wrote Structure and Physiology of Fishes Explained and Compared to that of
Man and Other Animals (1785)
____________ 10. Wrote Fishes of the World which is a standard reference for fish systematics, a
comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the 30,000-plus fish species known
to science.

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Study Guide in PROF Fish 101 Ichthyology (Course Code & Title) Module 1 _History of Ichthyology_____ (Unit/Chapter Title)

REFERENCES

Helfman, G.S., Collette, B.B., Facey, D.E. and B.W. Bowen. The Diversity of Fishes: Biology,
Evolution and Ecology. Second Edition. Wiley-Blackwell.

Moyle, P.B. and J.J. Cech. 2004. Fishes: An Introduction to Ichthyology. Pearson Prentice Hall.
726 p.

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