Summary: Join Kiersten as she discusses the classification of the Aba aba a bit more closely to find out what it can tell us about this amazing fish.   For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean   Show Notes:  “Introduction to the Actinopterygii” https://ucmp.berkeley.edu Bony Tongue, EBSCO Research Starters: https://www.ebsco.com Music written and performed by Katherine Camp   Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops)   Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating.      This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. In episode four, we're going to jump back a bit to episode one and delve into more detail about about the class, order, and family of the Aba aba. The fourth thing I like about Aba abas is their classification. In episode one I briefly described the classification of this fish, but I think we should investigate the class, order, and family of Aba abas a bit more closely. First for my first time listeners, or for those who are not students of biology, what is classification?  It a system that scientists and researchers use to connect all living things but to also individualize all living things. Whether flora (plants) or fauna (animals) we are all related through physical characteristics.  Way back in the day, like way back in the 1700s, Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish biologist and physician who developed a binomial nomenclature (a two part name) to organize every living thing into groups. It helped man understand the natural world around him. We still use this classification system today, even though the attributes we use to organize individual plants and animals into their groups has evolved over the years. In the beginning, naturalist used things like appearance and behavior to place animals and plants into the same groups, but now we look at genetic similarities to classify living things. The two part name consists of the genus and the species. This helps make sure that when you are talking about an individual animal or plant with another researcher you are talking about the same plant or animal. Animals often have different common names around the world and even have different names within the same country. For example, fireflies are known as fireflies, lightening bugs, and glow-worms. These common names vary depending on what region of the United States you may be visiting, but we’re all talking about the same insect. The Aba aba is known as Aba aba, African knife fish, Frankish, freshwater rat-tail, or aba fish, so researchers refer to it as Gymnarchus niloticus.  If we take a few steps back in the classification we can learn even more about an animal. So let’s do that now with Gymnarchus niloticus. When we look at the Class level of this animal, Actinopterygii, we know that it is a ray-finned fish. What exactly does that tell us? Well, Actinopterygii are fish that possess fins that are made of webs of skin supported by bony or horny spines. We also know that fish in this Class usually have complex skeletons of true bone. Ray-finned fish are the dominant aquatic vertebrates in the water today. They make up about half of all vertebrate species known and are found in every aquatic habitat from the deepest depths of the ocean to freshwater streams and ponds.  So this level of classification lets us know that Aba abas have a bony skeleton and some sort of webbed fin on their body. It’s a great start. The next step is the Order. This will narrow down things ever more. Aba abas are classified in Order O