Taxonomy and Nomenclature
Crazy fish (Butis butis) is classified under the genus Butis in the subfamily Butinae of the family Eleotridae (sleeper gobies). They belong to the suborder Gobioidei of the order Perciformes.
Crazy fish was first described by the Scottish naturalist Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in 1822 from a specimen recovered from the Ganges River near Calcutta, India. He originally classified it under the genus Cheilodipterus. It was transferred to the genus Eleotris by the Danish naturalist Theodore Edward Cantor in 1850. In 1856, the Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker moved it to its own genus, Butis. Hamilton did not explain the origin of the specific name. It is believed, however, that Hamilton derived the name from the Indian word butis, decorative circular designs on sari fabric, probably referring to the coloration of crazy fish.
Other common names of crazy fish include upside down sleeper, crimson-tipped gudgeon, duckbill sleeper, crocodile fish, flat-headed gudgeon, pointed head gudgeon, and bony-snouted gudgeon in English; eendbek-slaper in Afrikaans; kuli (কুলি) in Bengali; kuonotorkkuja in Finnish; butis à épaulette noire in French; Spitzkopfgrundel in German; pasel in Ibanag; nyereh, ploso, puntang, belosoh, belontok, ubi, and ubi muncung itik in Indonesian and Malaysian; bloso-watu in Javanese; jǐ táng lǐ (嵴塘鳢) in Mandarin; vaneya in Sinhalese; bukletkhaeng (บู่เกล็ดแข็ง) in Thai; and cá bống cấu, cá bống đầu dẹp, and cá bong trân in Vietnamese.
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