Swiss people to help name new Swiss fish species

Population can help decide the names of new Swiss fish species Keystone-SDA

Researchers are asking the Swiss public for help in naming two newly discovered Swiss fish species of the genus Barbatula - also known as the bearded goby or common loach.

The researchers hope that the outreach to the public will raise awareness of biodiversity among the population.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

“By actively involving the population in the discovery process, we want to foster a deeper connection with nature,” said biologist Barbara Calegari from the University of Bern in an interview published by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) on Tuesday.

Participants in the surveyExternal link are asked whether the first newly discovered fish species should be called Barbatula “fluvicola” or Barbatula “amnicus”. For the second newly discovered species, the options are Barbatula “ommata” or Barbatula “limnicus”. The epithets describe a special characteristic of the fish species.

One species lives in fast-flowing streams and rivers whose water ultimately flows into the Rhine. The other species lives in lakes. The new Barbatula fish were identified as a new species following an investigation using modern genetic methods.

“In Switzerland, fish species are often overlooked because their habitats are considered to be well researched,” says researcher Calegari. According to her, 13 European Barbatula species are known to date. According to the biologist, researchers estimate that there are still 800 species to be described across Europe.

Adapted from German by DeepL/jdp

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].