The early history of ‘Lakselus’ and some nomenclatural questions relating to copepod parasites of salmon

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Abstract
A review of pre-19th century literature revealed that the vernacular ‘lakselus’, or one of its spelling variants, was used for two copepods parasitic on Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar Linnaeus, 1758, the marine caligid Lepeophtheirus salmonis Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Krøyer, 1837) and the freshwater lernaeopodid Salmincola salmoneus (Linnaeus, 1758). Current usage restricts lakselus (‘salmon louse’ in English) to L. salmonis. The vernacular ‘gill-maggot’ (‘gjellelus’ in Norwegian) is applied to S. salmoneus. The first specific name to be assigned to the marine lakselus was salmoneus by O.F. Müller in 1785, independently of the use of the same specific name by Linnaeus in 1758 for the gill-maggot. Later authors failed, however, to adopt this specific name for the marine caligid, and it would serve no useful purpose now, some 200 years later, to replace salmonis Krøyer, 1837 with salmoneus MÜller, 1785. We propose, therefore, that L. salmonis Krøyer, 1837 remain the valid name for the marine salmon louse or lakselus.

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