FISHFINDER: Catching fish name mistakes in text

Abstract In a sea of text, fish name mistakes are easy to miss. Latin binomials are easy to misspell, and taxonomic nomenclature is continuously revised as new phylogenetic evidence accumulates, creating a persistent disconnect between current taxonomy and the names used in the literature. For example, the eighth edition of Common and Scientific Names of Fishes from the United States, Canada, and Mexico introduced 850 changes to fish nomenclature. But no existing tool validates fish names in unstructured manuscript text against this authority. Therefore, I developed FISHFINDER, a free, easy-to-use web application that classifies scientific and common fish names by comparing them against the 5,086 species in the Names of Fishes, 8th edition and 8,729 synonyms compiled from Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (https://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp). An analysis of synonym data revealed that species accumulate a mean of 1.7 synonyms (median = 1, max = 38), with 61% of species having at least one historical synonym that could appear in the literature. To quantify the prevalence of naming errors in recent literature, I applied the FISHFINDER classification engine to the body text of 38 papers whose study systems were verified to lie within the Names of Fishes area (the United States, Canada, and Mexico) and that used at least one scientific name. Of these, 42% contained at least one outdated synonym or misspelled species name: 29% used outdated synonyms and 29% contained misspellings. An additional 53% of papers referenced species whose names changed between the seventh and eighth editions. These findings demonstrate that nomenclatural errors are common and that automated validation tools can help authors, reviewers, and editors ensure taxonomic accuracy before publication. FISHFINDER is freely available at fishnames.net.