Editing Murray cod (section)

==Taxonomy==
In Mitchell's original description, he classified the fish as "Family, Percidae; Genus, Acerina; Subgenus, Gristes, Cuv. or Growler; Species, Gristes peelii mihi, or Cod-perch", observing "This fish may be identical with the fish described by MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes Volume 3 page 45 under the name of Gristes macquariensis: but it differs from their description…".<ref>Mitchell, Thomas Livingstone. ''Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia …'' 2 ed., vol 1. [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00035.html] Cuvier had placed the [[largemouth bass]] and [[Maccullochella macquariensis|blue nose cod]] into a single genus, ''Gristes'' (''Le Règne Animal…'', rev. ed., t. 2 (1829), p. 145 [https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/99171#page/167/mode/1up] ), but the North American [[Black bass|black basses]] and Australian trout-cods are now considered unrelated.</ref>{{Rp|Jan 24}}

In the 1800s and early 1900s, commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, riverside residents, and some fisheries scientists (e.g. Anderson, Stead, Langtry) distinctly recognised two species of cod in the southern Murray-Darling basin, Murray cod and trout cod or "blue nose cod". Taxonomically however, confusion abounded. Ignoring glaring differences in size at sexual maturity, and via some rather unscientific reasoning, some prominent fisheries scientists (e.g. Whitley) insisted on recognising only one species of cod—the Murray cod (then named ''Maccullochella macquariensis'', after an early Australian fish researcher with the surname McCulloch<ref name=mdbcnames>
{{Cite journal
 |title=Fish Names
 |journal=Basin Kids
 |publisher=Murray Darling Basin Commission
 |url=http://www.landmark.mdbc.gov.au/education/basinkids/basin_fish/Fish_Names.htm
 |access-date=2007-10-02
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070831151522/http://www.landmark.mdbc.gov.au/education/basinkids/basin_fish/fish_names.htm
 |archive-date=2007-08-31
}}
</ref> and the Macquarie River in [[New South Wales]] where the [[holotype]] was captured<ref name=mdbcnames/>). Then, as trout cod declined into near extinction over the 1900s, the distinction between the two species was further eroded and finally questioned. In the 1970s, early genetic techniques confirmed that trout cod were a separate [[species]] and further showed that the original "Murray cod" specimen was in fact a trout cod. Following the rules of [[scientific classification]], the name ''M. macquariensis'' remained with the original specimen, now known to be the trout cod, and a new name, ''M. peelii'', for the Peel River<ref name=mdbcnames/> where the new holotype was captured, was coined for the Murray cod. Subsequently, two further cod were identified as separate species, the eastern freshwater cod (''M. ikei'') and the Mary River cod (''M. mariensis'').<ref name=Nocketal2010/><ref name=nfacod/>