As names for fishes often change over time, standardisation is essential to ensure that information relates to the correct Family, genus and species or other taxonomic category. Scientific and common names used here follow the Australian Museum (2009). Table 2 lists scientific, common English and indigenous names, where known, and outdated names used by older references. The Fish Taxon Code can be used to link Table 2 data to that stored in the AFBI archive and elsewhere. Web sources were used to check and standardise names to the Australian Museum list: WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species); FishBase (A Global Information System on Fishes); ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic System).
Some fishes described in older literature could not be matched to taxa listed by the Australian Museum, especially where only common names were used. Common names are highly variable and unreliable. Many 18th- and 19th-century observers writing about fish could only provide English or other common names for types that were, or at least seemed, familiar to them. For example, Attenbrow (2010, 63) summarises information about fishes occurring in Port Jackson, Broken Bay and Botany Bay given by W. Tench writing between 1789-93. He lists a range of types by contemporary European common name only and notes there were 'innumerable others unknown in Europe'.
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