Classifying Fishes: Order Cypriniformes
The classification of animals is called taxonomy, all types of animals, including fish, are categorised into different types. Fish are generally grouped according to their likenesses and differences by the people that do the classifying called taxonomists, or systematists.
Five "orders" make up 95% of the fishes in the freshwater aquarium hobby. They are the Cypriniformes, the Characiformes, the Siluriformes, the Cyprinodontiformes and the Perciformes. The remaining 5% are spread over another 4-5 orders.
The Order Cypriniformes
The order Cypriniformes contains a vast variety of fish, including all of the carp-like fish (Common carp, koi carp, mirror carp etc) and smaller fish such as barbs, rasboras and danios, plus loaches and others.
See examples below:
Carp
All of the carp-like fish, such as the common carp and koi carp, belong to the order Cypriniformes.
Barbs
All of the Barbs - including Tiger Barbs and Cherry Barbs - belong to the order Cypriniformes.
Rasboras
All of the rasboras, such as the Harlequin rasbora and Galaxy Rasbora / Celestial Danio - belong to the order Cypriniformes.
Danios
All Danio fish, such as the Zebra and Giant danio pictured - belong to the order Cypriniformes.
Loaches
All loaches, such as the Clown loach and YoYo loach pictured - belong to the order Cypriniformes.
Groups and Taxon / Taxa
Like all animals, fish are classified into large primary groups that are broken down into smaller groups, which are then broken down into even smaller, less inclusive groups.
For fish, the largest and most inclusive group would be the kingdom Animalia, which contains all animals.The next being the phylum, for fish it would be the phylum Vertebra, which contains all animals with backbones.
The next smaller grouping would be the "class" Osteichthyes, before descending into the four main "taxa" that make up the classifications of fish. These are the order, the family, the genus and the species. Some subfamilies, subgenera and subspecies also exist. In future blogs, we will explore in depth the history and the meaning behind them.
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