The alewife is a type of herring, native to North America. It is anadromous – in other words, it lives in the sea but migrates into fresh water (estuaries and rivers) to spawn. The name comes from a perceived resemblance between its body shape and that of a female innkeeper. (Wikipedia also gives a possible alternative origin, but IMHO a less believable one, from a Native American language.) Wikipedia also states that there is a "landlocked" form, which is also known as a sawbelly or mooneye.
The name 'barramundi' originated in the language of Australian aborigines. It was originally given to two species in the genus Scleropages (saratogas), but (according to Wikipedia) was "appropriated for marketing reasons" in the 1980s, and now applies to Lates calcarifer – a.k.a. the Australian sea bass.
The bummalo, as every quizzer should know, is eaten as Bombay duck.
The golomyanka – also known as the Baikal oilfish – is one of two members of the genus Comephorus: two peculiar fishes endemic to Lake Baikal in Russia. The golomyanka is a pelagic fish (i.e. it doesn't usually come close to the shore or the bottom of the lake), and they are the main food source of the Baikal seal.
The lamprey is a jawless fish, a bit like an eel; like eels, it has no scales. But it isn't an eel.
The mudskippers are probably the best–known family of amphibious fish (i.e. fish that can live on land as well as in water). Another is the lungfish, of which there are six known species – living in Africa, South America and Australia. Lungfish (as their name implies) have primitive lungs as well as gills, and in times of drought they can survive for years on land, cocooned in mud in a dormant state. Mudskippers spend about three quarters of their lives on land, but under normal conditions they can only survive for about a day at a time out of the water.
The pollan (a.k.a. the Irish pollan) is known to live in only five Irish lakes, including Lough Neagh and Lough Erne. It faces competition from introduced species such as pike, roach, and zebra mussel, and the populations rely on restocking for survival.
The sergeant baker (or dragon snapper) is a species of flagfin – a genus characterised by their large dorsal fin whose first ray is greatly extended. They are bottom dwellers, living at depths of 1,000 metres. The sergeant baker, which can grow up to two feet long, is commonly found in Australia's warm southern waters between Queensland and Western Australia. To quoteWikipedia, "They readily take bait or lures, but are generally considered poor eating". The species is named after Sergeant William Baker, who served as orderly sergeant to Admiral Arthur Phillip (commander of Australia's First Fleet, and the first Governor of New South Wales) and may have been the first colonist to catch one.
The vendace is said to be Britain's rarest freshwater fish. It lives in lakes such as Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite Lake (both in the Lake District), and some Scottish lochs.
© Haydn Thompson 2017