Esox

Esox is a genus of freshwater fish commonly known as pike or pickerel. It is the type genus of the family Esocidae. The type species of the genus is Esox lucius, the northern pike. Esox have a fossil record extending back to the Paleocene. Modern large pike species are native to the Palearctic and Nearctic realms, ranging across Northern America and from Western Europe to Siberia in North Asia. Pike have the elongated, torpedo-like shape typical of predatory fishes, with sharply pointed heads and sharp teeth. Their coloration is typically grey-green with a mottled or spotted appearance with stripes along their backs, providing camouflage among underwater weeds, and each individual pike marking patterns are unique like fingerprints. Pikes can grow to a maximum recorded length of , reaching a maximum recorded weight of 55 lb, 1 oz. They are a long lived species and the skeleton of a particularly large example held in a museum in Mannheim in the nineteenth century was thought to have been up to 100 years old.

Esox is a genus of freshwater fish commonly known as pike or pickerel. It is the type genus of the family Esocidae. The type species of the genus is Esox lucius, the northern pike. Esox have a fossil record extending back to the Paleocene. Modern large pike species are native to the Palearctic and Nearctic realms, ranging across Northern America and from Western Europe to Siberia in North Asia. Pike have the elongated, torpedo-like shape typical of predatory fishes, with sharply pointed heads and sharp teeth. Their coloration is typically grey-green with a mottled or spotted appearance with stripes along their backs, providing camouflage among underwater weeds, and each individual pike marking patterns are unique like fingerprints. Pikes can grow to a maximum recorded length of , reaching a maximum recorded weight of 55 lb, 1 oz. They are a long lived species and the skeleton of a particularly large example held in a museum in Mannheim in the nineteenth century was thought to have been up to 100 years old.

Etymology

specimen — a "chain pickerel" in the original sense — in an aquarium. The generic name Esox (pike fish) derives from the Greek ἴσοξ (ee-soks, a large fish) and appears to be cognate with Celtic, Welsh eog and Irish Gaelic iasc (fish), as well as alpine Gaulic *esosk which is consistent with the original indoeuropean root for the common word for fish, *pei(k)sk. Pliny uses the Latin form Esox in reference to a large fish in the Rhine normally identified with Salmonidae (lax or salmon). Carolus Linnæus attributes Esox to the pike fish which is of similar form and appearance but taxonomically different from the salmon forms, whereas the first mention of Esox as a marine animal appears in the writings of Hesychius. The English common name "pike" is an apparent shortening of "pike-fish", in reference to its pointed head, as the Old English word píc originally referring to a pickaxe. The plural of pike is also pike. A Northern English and Lowland Scots name for the pike, ged, similarly derives from Old Norse gaddr (spike) (cf. the modern Swedish name for the pike, gädda, the Danish "gedde", the Norwegian "gjedde" and Scottish Gaelic: geadais). The Dutch name for the pike (snoek) has been given to a wide variety of fish reminding sailors of the pike (see snoek, snook). The English "pike" originally referred specifically to the adult fish, the diminutive form "pickerel" (now used to name some of the smaller pike species, e.g. E. americanus and E. niger) referring to the young. The walleye (Sander vitreus) is sometimes called a pickerel or a walleyed pike, but it is unrelated to the pike, being a member of the perch family (Percidae). Pike are not to be confused with the unrelated pikeminnows of genus Ptychocheilus (family Cyprinidae) or pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) which is more akin to walleye than to pike. Pike are also called "jackfish" in North America and informally "slough shark" in Western Canada.

Diet

, Vienna Pike feed on a wide range of food sources, predominantly smaller shoal fish. Pike are also cannibalistic, sometimes preying upon smaller members of their own species. This can be seen clearly in the northern pike. They will also prey on insects and amphibians such as newts or frogs in times when their usual food is scarce, and occasionally on small mammals like moles or mice when caught water-borne. Small birds such as ducklings may become a target for hungry pike. Pike are also known to prey on swimming snakes. They are, however, undeserving of their reputation for being overly vicious predators. There have been some incidents of pike "attacks" on people. However these are rare cases of mistaken identity, where the pike mistakes human body parts, such as fingers, for prey. Pike's further reputation as a pest seems to lie predominantly amongst a small handful of anglers and fishery managers who think that invasive species of pike are a threat to native rough fish and also other sport fish.

Cuisine

The taste of pike and pickerel is highly esteemed, but the "multitude of long, fine, forked bones" are problematic. The dish of quenelles de brochet (pike dumplings), which puts the meat through a sieve, was invented to deal with this. Indeed, Escoffier believed, falsely, that quenelles had completely displaced the whole fish from the menu.

Submarines and tanks

Two United States Navy submarines have been named Pike – SS-6 of 1903 and SS-173 of 1935 – and three – SS-22 of 1912, SS-177 of 1936, and SS-524 of 1944 – named Pickerel. In addition, the Soviet submarines known to NATO as the Victor III class and Akula class are called the Shchuka (Щука, "pike") class in Russian. The Soviet Iosif Stalin tank (IS-3) was also nicknamed Shchuka, in reference to its sharply pointed hull front.

Heraldry

In heraldry, the pike is called a lucy (English heraldry) or a ged (Scottish heraldry). It is usually blazoned either naiant (swimming), embowed (bowed) or hauriant (jumping), though pairs of lucies may appear addorsed (back to back), as in the arms of the Finnish town of Uusikaupunki (Argent, two lucies addorsed azure).

References

External links

Oxford English Dictionary, s.vv. "Esox", "Ged 1 ", and "Pike, n. 4 ". Pike in Your Waters, the Pike Anglers Club, pub 2003 Pike Preservation - Fishing Equipment , Pike Fishing Scotland Float Tube Fishing In Ireland Pike Fishing from a Float Tube Pike Fishing in Denmark Coarse Fishing in Denmark Pike Fishing in Scotland Coarse Fishing in the Highlands River Swimming Water Safety mentions Pike attack as a risk of open water swimming. Accessed 21 October 2007

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1358411516 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.