''Molva'' is a genus of

lotid The Lotidae are a family of cod-like fishes commonly known as lings or rocklings. They are found in the Arctic Ocean, Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. Except for a few species of ''Gaidropsarus'', all are restricted to the Northern Hemisphe ...

fishes, the lings, with these currently recognized species: * '' Molva dypterygia'' ( Pennant, 1784) (blue ling) * '' Molva macrophthalma'' (

Rafinesque Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; October 22, 1783September 18, 1840) was a French 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimat ...

, 1810) (Spanish ling) * ''

Molva molva The common ling (''Molva molva''), also known as the white ling or simply the ling, is a large member of the Family (biology), family Lotidae, a group of Gadiformes, cod-like fishes. It resembles the related rocklings, but it is much larger and ...

'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

1758 Events January–March * January 1 – Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (''Animalia'') of the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', the starting point of modern zoologi ...

) (common ling)

Etymology

The generic name derives ultimately from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

''morua'' ("codfish"), which became ''morlue'' in

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

and then ''molva'' in Provencal and ''molve'' in Modern French. Another theory derives it from Breton ''mor'' ("sea") and Old French ''luz'' (" pike").

References

Lotidae {{Gadiformes-stub