Dottybacks and basslets
- Thread starter Giblin7
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Tony Gill
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Yes, they should be ... but common names are always a bit tricky. Having said that, this species appears in the literature under two scientific names. It was originally described as Pseudochromis porphyreus. In my 2004 taxonomic revision of the dottyback subfamily Pseudochrominae, I erected a new genus (Pictichromis) for the species and several similar ones. So, in more recent literature you will see it as Pictichromis porphyrea.
Tony Gill
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Oh, and a little more on the dottyback versus basslet term. As far as I can work out, the common name dottyback was erected by Australian ichthyologist Ian S.R. Munro in his 1955 Fishes of Ceylon. He based the name on the brown dottyback (Pseudochromis fuscus), a species that has obvious dark spots on its back. The name was eventually applied to the entire family (except for the elongate congrogadines, which are usually called eel-blennies), even though many do not have spots on their back. The term basslet is a more general one, and has been applied to various unrelated species, including dottbacks, smaller members of the grouper family (Serranidae), grammatids (such as Gramma loreto), and prettyfins (Plesiopidae).
For reference of the awesome power of common names, strawberry dottyback is synonymous with purple basslet, purple dottyback, purple Pseudochromis, strawberry gramma, and magenta gramma which spans anything pink to purple from Pseudochrominae to Anthiinae. Fun huh!
Tony Gill
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I've never been a fan of common names - unless the scientific name is given as well. Worse still though are the abbreviations and codes. It's a wonder people are able to communicate at all.
Buffy
Aquarium Advice Addict
Now that was all a foreign language to me lol. I got stuck just trying to pronounce them, let alone remember which is which. lol
I'm not a fan of common names either since every specie seems to have 5 common names associated with it (some cross over to freshwater). It's good practice imo to associate scientific terminology for proper identification purposes and to just better your overall knowledge of aquatics (scientific names are insights to animal classifications). Once you practice using proper names you get the hang of it over time...sorta XD
Tony Gill
Aquarium Advice FINatic
It seems that common names are often created by sellers or suppliers whenever a species is encountered that can't be identified. I have seen some pretty weird ones in my time. More worrying perhaps is that vague or misleading common names are often applied to food fishes as well - I'm not sure how they get away with it!
Your observation that scientific names give insight into the classification of the species is an important one, as classifications may communicate additional biological information about the species. In contrast, misleading common names (for instance mandarin goby) can direct aquarists to incorrect information. I recall one a few years back on this forum where there was confusion over the term toadfish, a name that may be applied to batrachoidids (where there are species that may have venomous spines) and tetraodontids (where most species are poisonous to eat).
Your observation that scientific names give insight into the classification of the species is an important one, as classifications may communicate additional biological information about the species. In contrast, misleading common names (for instance mandarin goby) can direct aquarists to incorrect information. I recall one a few years back on this forum where there was confusion over the term toadfish, a name that may be applied to batrachoidids (where there are species that may have venomous spines) and tetraodontids (where most species are poisonous to eat).
