A Review of the Taxonomic History of Taiwan's Fishes
Kwang-Tsao Shao 1,2* and Hsuan-Ching Ho 3,4,5
1 Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
2 Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan
3 Department of Aquaculture, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
4 Taiwan Ocean Research Institute, National Applied Research Laboratories, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
5 Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia
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Abstract:
The study of the taxonomy of Taiwanese fishes started as early as 1858. Europeans, Canadians, and Americans were the pioneers in studying the fish fauna of Taiwan. After the Sino-Japanese war (1894–1895), China ceded Taiwan to Japan, and Japanese zoologists started the taxonomic study of Taiwanese fishes. After the end of WWII, Japan ended its colonial rule (1895–1945), and ichthyologists in Taiwan started their own studies on fish classification.
Professor Johnson Ta-Fu Chen was the earliest pioneer of fish taxonomy research in Taiwan. In 1954, he published the first edition of Fishes of Taiwan, which included 140 families and 675 species of fishes, along with key to all species. His A synopsis of the vertebrates of Taiwan, published in 1956, recorded a total of 870 species of fish and was used as a textbook on fish taxonomy in universities for more than 40 years. Professors Ren-Sheng Liang and Shih-Chieh Shen are considered the second generation of ichthyologists. Prof. Shen has been teaching fish taxonomy at the Department of Zoology, National Taiwan University, for more than 40 years since 1967. The Fishes of Taiwan he edited in 1993 compiled a total of 2,028 species. Students who took Prof. Shen's classes are considered the third generation, including Hin-Kiu Mok and Kwang-Tsao Shao, who specialized in marine fishes, and Chyng-Shyan Tzeng, who specialized in freshwater fishes. Later, they expanded into different fields such as ecology, evolution, and conservation. Prof. Che-Tsung Chen of National Taiwan Ocean University, a graduate of the University of Tokyo, specialized in cartilaginous fishes and fishery biology.
The master's or doctoral students supervised by the third generation after 2000, including Yu-Yun Chen, Hurng-Yi Wang, Shoou-Jeng Joung, Jeng-Ping Chen, I-Shiung Chen, Hong-Ming Chen, Hsuan-Ching Ho, Yun-Chih Liao, and Mao-Ying Lee, are considered the fourth generation, while the students supervised by them represent the fifth generation. In addition to using traditional morphological study methods, they also integrated genetics or DNA barcoding to conduct taxonomic or phylogenetic studies across various taxa, including species classification and exploration of their phylogeny. More than 400 new species and 1,000 new records in Taiwan have been described or documented. The results have been fruitful.
In addition, several outstanding scholars returned to Taiwan directly after studying abroad, including Wei-Jen Chen, Te-Yu Liao, and Hsiu-Chin Lin, who focused on exploring molecular phylogenetic relationships. Meanwhile, Chien-Hsiang Lin studied the application of otoliths and their fossils in fish classification and the reconstruction of paleobiodiversity and biogeography.
Taiwan's strength in fish taxonomy research is directly related to its unique geographical location and rich fish diversity. Moreover, the classification of adult fishes and the use of DNA barcoding for species identification of fish eggs and larvae have developed considerably and achieved laudable results. The Taiwan Fish Database has a history of 35 years and is very popular and well-known both in Taiwan and abroad. Taiwan hosted the 7th and 12th Indo-Pacific Fish Conferences in Taipei, in 2005 and 2025, respectively, which attracted many ichthyologists and taxonomists from abroad to engage in intellectual exchanges with domestic scientists.
In addition to introducing the aforementioned major scholars engaged in Taiwanese fish taxonomy research and their contributions, this article also briefly summarizes the evolution of the fish classification system, the status of Taiwanese specimen collections, statistics on the number of fish species in the database, types of fish geographical distribution and mechanisms of their formation, the classification of fish eggs and larvae, cooperation and exchanges in fish research between Taiwan and China, and the difficulties and future prospects of fish taxonomy studies. The aim is to chronicle the historical development of fish taxonomy in Taiwan for future reference. However, because the article involves many different aspects, it is impossible to describe them all in detail, and some omissions are likely to occur. It is hoped that any unintentional omissions may be excused and that overlooked facts will be added in future documentation.
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