What is ichthyology and why study it?
Ichthyology is the study of the biology of fishes in all its ramifications, including but not confined to the sub-disciplines of form, function, and development; taxonomy, systematics, and biodiversity; migration, geographic distribution, and zoogeography; behavior and ecology; habitat loss, commercial exploitation, and conservation. With well over 29,000 recognized species, fishes make up more than half of the world’s 48,000 species of vertebrates. Along with this remarkable taxonomic diversity comes an equally impressive habitat diversity. Today, and in the past, fishes have occupied all aquatic habitats, from lakes and polar oceans that are ice-covered throughout much of the year, to tropical swamps, temporary ponds, intertidal pools, the greatest of ocean depths, and all the more benign environments that lie within and between these various extremes. To live and thrive in such a variety of environments, fishes have undergone obvious and striking anatomical, physiological, behaviora
