SEARCHING FOR SPECIES IN THE
Information for the approximately 55,000 species or subspecies of fishes is arranged in paragraphs (one for each species). Some entries have remarks on types, nomenclature, etc., but a typical entry is:
audax, Acentrogobius Smith 1959:201, Fig. 17 [Ichthyol. Bull. J. L. B. Smith Inst. Ichthyol. No. 13; ref. 4122]. Ibo I., Mozambique. Holotype (unique): RUSI 192. Valid (Prince Akihito in Masuda et al. 1984:249 [ref. 6441], Hoese 1986:777 [ref. 5670]). Gobiidae.
The order of presentation is species or subspecies name, original genus, author, date, page and figures, a short-version citation and the reference number, the type locality, the location of type specimens, the current status of the species, and the family/subfamily in which the species is now placed.
Searches will result in the assembly of those species that meet the search criteria. A search term may consist of a word, a phrase enclosed in double quotes, a partial word or phrase (enclosed in double quotes and ending with an asterisk), or a combination of search terms joined together with boolean (logical) operators. (See examples at the bottom of the search page.)
The displayed results will contain diacritic marks, bold and italics, and hyperlinks. The text actually being searched, however, is just plain and simple text, so it is not necessary to use diacritics in search strings; i.e., enter [ Gunther ], rather than [ Günther ] or [ Guenther ]. The degree sign [°] for latitude and longitude has been replaced with "deg" in the plain text substrate, but retrieving records by latitude-longitude is relatively difficult (see below).
Searches can be made for individual species, but remember that some names, such as marmoratus occur hundreds of times. Searches can combine words, so if you know the species name and the family, search on both. All the species in one family may be retrieved by entering the family name. Boolean operators [ and | or | and not ] may be used to restrict searches, e.g., if you wanted only valid species in the family Apogonidae, type [ valid and apogonidae ] (but remember status of many species has not been completed). It is also possible to assemble the species with a type locality in a certain geographic area, for example, one could generate a file of all the species with a type locality in Chile or Brazil — the resulting list may be somewhat incomplete, but we have tried to enter country in the records where possible (especially for freshwater localities). The "wild card" character [ * ], but only as the last character of a word or phrase, and always with the word or phrase enclosed in double quotes. (The wildcard is interpreted as 1 or more characters, not zero or more — e.g., [ "Hawaii*" ] will match "Hawaiian", but not "Hawaii" itself; use [ "Hawai*" ] instead.) Wildcard searches may be useful when you do not know the ending of a species name, such as for zonata, zonatum or zonatus, just type [ "zonat*" ] and you will obtain all records of zonata, zonatum or zonatus.
¹ To retrieve records containing the longitude [135°22.5'E] for example, you would enter [ "135deg22.5''E*" ]. The following points are critical:
- enclose the entire string in double quotes;
- replace the degree symbol with the three letters "deg" (no spaces);
- enter two single quote characters in place of the one used to denote minutes (not a double quote).