Esox

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Esox

Esox (Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus was a Sweden botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern alpha taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology....
, 1758) is a genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
of freshwater

Freshwater

Freshwater is a word that refers to bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, rivers and streams containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids....
fish

Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
, the only living genus in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
Esocidae. The type species

Type species

In taxonomy, a type species is the species that originally defined a genus . It is an individual specimen that fixes the name of a genus . Two different definitions are used interchangeably, in a general term and a botanical term....
is E. lucius, the northern pike

Northern Pike

The northern pike , Esox lucius, is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus Esox . They are typical of brackish water and freshwaters of the northern hemisphere ....
. The species of this genus are known as pike and pickerel.

The big pike species are native to the Palearctic

Palearctic

The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone....
and Nearctic

Nearctic

The Nearctic is one of the eight Terrestrial ecoregion ecozones dividing the Earth's land surface.The Nearctic ecozone covers most of North America, including Greenland and the highlands of Mexico....
ecozone

Ecozone

An ecozone or biogeographic realm is the largest scale biogeography division of the earth's surface based on the historic and evolutionary distribution patterns of plants and animals....
s, ranging across northern North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
and from Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe refers to the countries in the western most half of Europe. This concept has had different meanings, political and cultural as well as geographical issues have influenced the area....
to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
in Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
. They have been found in many urban lakes in Western Europe, reported to be in the Rostrum (Lucerne

Lucerne

Lucerne is a city in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and seat of the Lucerne with the same name. With a population of 57,890, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland and focal point of the region....
) and the Serpentine

Serpentine (lake)

The Serpentine is a 28 acre Artificial lake#Recreational in Hyde Park, London, England, created in 1730. Although it is common to refer to the entire body of water as the Serpentine, strictly the name refers only to the eastern half of the lake....
, (London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
).

Pike can grow to a maximum recorded length of 1.83 metres (6 ft), reaching a maximum recorded weight of 35 kilogram

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogrammeThe spelling kilogram is used by the International Committee for Weights and Measures and the U.S....
s (77 lb

Pound (mass)

The pound or pound-mass is a Units of measurement of massused in the Imperial unit, United States customary units and other systems of measurement....
).

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Encyclopedia

Esox (Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Genus

Freshwater

Freshwater is a word that refers to bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, rivers and streams containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids....
fish

Fish

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
Esocidae. The type species

Type species

Northern Pike

Palearctic

The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone....
and Nearctic

Nearctic

Ecozone

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
and from Western Europe

Western Europe

Siberia

Eurasia

Lucerne

Serpentine (lake)

London

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogrammeThe spelling kilogram is used by the International Committee for Weights and Measures and the U.S....
s (77 lb

Pound (mass)

The pound or pound-mass is a Units of measurement of massused in the Imperial unit, United States customary units and other systems of measurement....
). The UK record pike of 46 lbs 13 oz was caught on a Creek Chub Pikie lure by Roy Lewis at Llandegfedd Reservoir

Llandegfedd Reservoir

Llandegfedd Reservoir is a large water supply reservoir eight miles north of Newport in South Wales.It was opened by Newport Corporation in May 1965....
in Wales

Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
in 1992. Individuals have been reported to reach 30 years in age. They have the elongated, torpedo-like form 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 its back, perfectly camouflaged among weeds. Individual pike marking patterns are unique, like fingerprints.

Name

The generic name Esox derives from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
?s?? (a kind of fish), itself a word of Celtic

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European languages language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul....
origin related to the Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
eog and Irish Gaelic

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....
iach (salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout,the difference is often attributed to the migratory life of the salmon as compared to the residential behaviour of trout, this holds true for the Atlantic salmon....
). Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
uses the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
form esox in reference to a large fish in the Rhine

Rhine

File:Swiss Grand Canyon.jpgThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
normally identified with lax (salmon). It is likely that Carolus Linnaeus's application of Esox to the pikes is thus a misnomer.

The English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
common name "pike" is an apparent shortening of "pike-fish", in reference to its pointed head, Old English

Old English language

Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century....
píc originally referring to a pickaxe

Pickaxe

A pickaxe is a hand tool with a hard head attached perpendicular to the handle.Some people make the distinction that a pickaxe has a head with a pointed end and a flat end, and a pick has both ends pointed, or only one end; but most people use the words to mean the same thing....
.

A northern English and Lowland Scots

Scots language

Scots or Lowland Scots refers to the Germanic Variety derived from Middle English spoken in parts of Lowland Scotland, Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic of Ireland....
name for the pike, ged, similarly derives from Old Norse gaddr (spike) (cf. the modern Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
name for the pike, gädda, the Danish "gedde", the Norwegian "gjedde" and Scottish Gaelic: geadais). Polish

Polish language

Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
- szczupak, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
- brochet, German

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
- Hecht, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
- lucio, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
- luccio.

The English "pike" originally referred specifically to the adult fish, the diminutive form "pickerel" (now used to name some of the smaller pikes, E. americanus and E. niger) referring to the young. The walleye

Walleye

Walleye or yellow pickerel or pickerel is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the northern United States. It is a North American close relative of the European Zander....
(Sander vitreus) is sometimes called a pickerel, but it is unrelated to the pikes, being a member of the perch family (family Percidae

Percidae

The Percidae are a family of perciform fish found in fresh and brackish waters of the Northern Hemisphere. The family contains about 200 species in ten genera....
). The pikes are not to be confused with the unrelated pikeminnows (traditionally, and perhaps better, known as squawfish) of genus Ptychocheilus
Ptychocheilus

Squawfish or pikeminnows are cyprinid fish of the genus Ptychocheilus consisting of four species native to western North America....
(family Cyprinidae) or pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) which is more akin to walleye than to pike. Pike are often called "Jackfish" in the Southern United States.

Two United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the navy of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy currently has approximately 331,682 personnel on active duty as of 31 December 2008 and 124,000 in the United States Navy Reserve....
submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
s have been named Pike, SS-6

USS Pike (SS-6)

The first USS Pike was a in the service of the United States Navy, later renamed as A-5.She was laid down on 10 December 1900 at San Francisco, California by Union Iron Works, launched on 14 January 1903, and commissioned on 28 May 1903 at the Mare Island Navy Yard with Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur, Jr....
of 1903 and SS-173

USS Pike (SS-173)

USS Pike was laid down on 20 December 1933 by Portsmouth Navy Yard, in Kittery, Maine; Ship naming and launching on 12 September 1935; sponsored by Miss Jane Logan Snyder; and ship commissioning on 2 December 1935, Lieutenant Heber H....
of 1935, and three, SS-22

USS F-3 (SS-22)

USS F-3 , was a F class submarine. She was named Pickerel when her keel was laid down by the Moran Brothers Company of Seattle, Washington, making her the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pickerel, a type of Esox....
of 1912, SS-177

USS Pickerel (SS-177)

USS Pickerel , a United States Porpoise class submarine submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pickerel, a young or small Esox....
of 1936, and SS-524

USS Pickerel (SS-524)

USS Pickerel , a Tench class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for a young or small pike . The contract to build her was awarded to the Boston Naval Shipyard and her keel was laid down on 8 February 1944....
of 1944, named Pickerel. In addition, the Soviet

Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy was the naval part of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have been instrumental in any perceived Warsaw Pact role in an all-out war with NATO when it would have to stop the naval convoys bringing reinforcements over the Atlantic to the Western European theatre....
submarines known to NATO

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949....
as the Victor III class

Victor class submarine

The Victor class The Soviet Union discovered through its spy network that Americans could easily track Victor II-class subs and subsequently halted production of that type to design the Victor III class....
were called the Shchuka (????, "pike") class, in Russian

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
. The Soviet Iosif Stalin tank (IS-3)

Iosif Stalin tank

The Iosif Stalin tank , was a heavy tank developed by the Soviet Union during World War II. The tanks in the series are also sometimes called JS or ?? tanks....
was also nicknamed Shchuka, in reference to its sharply pointed hull front.

Diet

The pike feeds on a wide range of food sources, predominantly smaller shoal fish. Pike are also cannibalistic, sometimes preying upon smaller members of their own species.

They will also prey on insect

Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s and amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s such as newt

Newt

A newt is a salamander that lives in the water as an adult. Newts occur in the Pleurodelinae subfamily , found in North America, Europe and Asia....
s or frog

Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . The name frog derives from Old English language frogga, , cognate with Sanskrit plava , probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European language praw = "to jump"....
s in times when their usual food is scarce, and occasionally on small mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s like moles

Mole (animal)

Moles are the majority of the members of the mammal family Talpidae in the order Soricomorpha. Although most moles burrow, some species are aquatic or semi-aquatic....
or mice

Mouse

A mouse is a small animal that belongs to one of numerous species of rodents. The best known mouse species is the House Mouse . It is also a popular pet....
when caught water-borne. Small birds such as duckling

Duck

Duck is the common name for a number of species in the Anatidae family of birds. The ducks are divided between several subfamilies listed in full in the Anatidae article; they do not represent a clade but a form taxon, being the Anatidae not considered swans and goose....
s may become a target for hungry pike. The pikes are also known to prey on swimming snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate legless carnivore reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears....
s.

They are, however, undeserving of their reputation for being overly vicious predators. There are few substantiated incidents of pike 'attacks' on people. The pikes' further reputation as a pest seems to lie predominately amongst anglers who seek more desirable species.

Angling

Pike angling as a key part of general coarse fishing

Coarse fishing

Coarse fishing is a term used in the United Kingdom and Ireland for Sport fishing for coarse fish, which are those types of freshwater fish other than game fish ....
is becoming an increasingly popular pastime in the UK and Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
. Effective methods for catching this hard-fighting fish include dead baits, live baits and lure fishing. Pike can easily be damaged when handled since they are not as robust as their reputation would suggest. Color of lure can be influenced by water clarity and weather conditions. Since pike have numerous sharp teeth it is wise to take extreme care when unhooking the pike. The use of a wet leather gauntlet and surgical forceps to remove hooks is highly recommended on safety grounds. If practicing catch and release fishing, care for the pike should be the pike angler's utmost concern. The formerly recommended practice of grasping a pike by its eye sockets (tragically interpreted as "its eyes") resulted in countless released pike that quickly died from inability to see prey any longer.

The current recommended method of grasping pike is to close the hand firmly over the gill covers, and to make the period of handling the pike as short as possible before release. Grabbing the pike by the gill covers is not feasible when the pikes are very big, but it is easy to handle the pike by inserting the fingers at the bottom of the gill opening and grabbing the lower jaw. Big pike should also be supported at the belly. When a pike is held this way it is also easier to keep the mouth open to unleash the hooks. Many fishers now use special grips to grab the pikes front lower jaw, which can add to the safety of the anglers because of the danger imposed by the hooks of the lure or tackle and the teeth of the pike. The was formed in 1977 to campaign for the preservation of the pike and the sport of pike fishing.

A practice known as 'gut hooking' was previously widely used in catching pike. Upon taking the bait the pike will hold it for a short time in its mouth as it moves off. The pike will then, usually, turn the bait in its mouth so that it sits in alignment with the pike's throat to ease swallowing. It is recommended that when pike fishing the process is not allowed to go this far and a strike is recommended as soon as a bite is indicated. For this it is necessary to attach hooks on the head side as well as the middle of the baitfish. Otherwise what is known as 'gut hooking' will result which will normally kill or seriously injure the fish. Dutch research shows that cutting the line immediately when the fish is gut hooked will still give low mortality (14 %). The hooks in the gut or stomach were either encapsulated or removed from the body.

Other methods of catching and handing pike which are now frowned upon are the gaff and the gag. The gaff is a metal hook on the end of a pole used to hook through the fish's body in place of a more humane landing net. A gag is a device for holding open the pike's mouth whilst unhooking. These are now illegal as they put a huge amount of pressure on a pike's jaw thus causing irreparable damage.

In mythology and literature

In the Finnish Kalevala

Kalevala

The Kalevala is a book and Epic poetry which the Elias L?nnrot compiled from Finnish people and Karelian folklore in the nineteenth century....
, Väinämöinen

Väinämöinen

V?in?m?inen is the central character in the Finland folklore and the main character in the national epic Kalevala. Originally a Finnish god, he was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical voice....
creates a kantele

Kantele

Kantele is a Finland traditional plucked string instrument. It is related to the Ethnic Russian music gusli, the Latvian kokle, the Lithuanian kankles and the Estonian kannel....
(string instrument) from the jawbone of the pike.

Russian mythology holds that the pike is one of several forms assumed by evil water spirits called vodyanoy, and a ravenous mythical pike is traditionally blamed for decimating the fish population in the Sheksna River

Sheksna River

Sheksna is a river in Vologda Oblast, Russia, a left tributary of Volga River. It has its source in the Lake Beloye, Vologda Oblast at , and joins the northern part of the Rybinsk Reservoir of the Volga near in the city of Cherepovets....
. Russian fairytales, on the other hand, also tell about an old wise pike that can fullfill wishes of the one who catches it, if its catcher releases it back into its habitat.

In the beginning of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky Monday Begins on Saturday
Monday Begins on Saturday

Monday Begins on Saturday is a 1964 science fiction / science fantasy novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Set in a fictional town in northern Russia, where highly classified research in Magic occurs, the novel is a satire of Soviet Union scientific research institutes, complete with an inept administration, a dishonest, show-horse pro...
a wise centuries-old pike appears in the story when main character Sasha arrives at Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is, in Slavic folklore, a witch-like character who flies around on a giant Mortar and pestle, kidnapping small children, and lives in a house which stands on chicken feet....
's house in Solovets.

In the 10th episode of Monarch of the Glen
Monarch of the Glen

Monarch of the Glen is a television drama, produced by Ecosse Films for BBC Scotland and originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom....
series 3, Hector MacDonald fights a pike that has infultrated his loch and eaten all the fish.

Submarines

The name of the Soviet Shchuka class submarine

Shchuka class submarine

The Shchuka class submarines , also referred to as ShCh or SC class submarines were a medium-sized class of Soviet Union submarines, built in large numbers and used during World War II....
s, active during the Second World War, is derived from "Shchuka" - Russian

Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
for "pike".

The United States Navy had the submarines USS Pike (SS-6)

USS Pike (SS-6)

USS Pike (SS-173)