Background
Draft List of Australian Fish Names
January 2006 updates (MS Excel Spreadsheet format)
CSIRO Marine Research, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, and Seafood Services Australia have joined forces with fish-book authors, fish taxonomists, recreational anglers, aquarists, and the fishing industry to produce a uniform list of standardised names for Australian fishes.
The draft list of names was constructed from options used in Australia for each species. While there will be regional preferences for some fish names over others, the use of one name per species across the country will have great benefits.
With more than 4,500 species to consider, we need to ensure the process is not dominated by parochialism. The aim is to wind up with names that are unambiguous and manageable.
During the public consultation phase of this project (early July till mid-August 2004) we identified names that were blatantly incorrect or inappropriate.
The draft list of names is available here, together with recently proposed additions and changes here. There are three worksheets in the "proposed additions and changes" file: (1) New records and species; (2) Name changes; and (3) Goby name changes (these involve combining "Goby" with other words in the name, for example, "Oyster Goby" becomes "Oystergoby").
The additions and changes are open for public comment until March 2006, after which the final list will be published.
Thank you for your interest.