When Writing The Blog And Mentioning Fish,

I always give the common name followed by the Latin name in italics,

the reason is that one fish can have several common or English names, in say just the UK there could be a number of local names, then when the names that are used in other languages are translated to English there can be even more, so Latin is used, so that where ever you are in the world or what ever your language Poecilia reticulata can only mean one thing, in the fish keeping world, the guppy, well on to plants, today experts from Britain and the U.S have taken a step to resolving the issue by publishing the most comprehensive list of land plant species ever compiled,

the database was created by researchers at Kew Gardens and the Missouri Botanical Garden, it identifies 1.25 million plant names - 300,000 of which are recognised as standard species while 480,000 are regarded as synonyms or alternative names, the bad news is that it still leaves 260,000 names that are 'unresolved', this is where the data is deemed too sketchy to easily determine whether a new plant claim is backed up by facts, this part of the list will be tackled by scientists in the coming decades, hopefully the same will happen in the aquatic world, unfortunately there is no Kew gardens for fish, but research is ongoing at many aquariums, zoos and museums over the world, so who knows maybe in a few years time there will be like plants, the most comprehensive list of fish species ever compiled.