Would you like to play a game that does not involve a phone, iPad or computer. Would you like your children to play a game that just requires pen & paper? How about the A B C of fish.

Did you ever play:

City – Country – River – Name – Animal – Job – Plant
Everyone gets a piece of paper and a pencil. Divide the paper into 3 columns or more if you want to include more categories. Chose a letter, now you have 2 minutes to write down as many cities, countries and rivers as possible starting with that letter. Fill in the proper columns on the paper.

Time is up – pencil down. Now compare your lists. If you have the same city, country or river listed as someone else, it is crossed off. Points are awarded for unique names. Invented places don’t count. To get better at the game you had to study maps and look for unique places.

How about studying a fish ID book instead. In addition to helping with the game this will improve your knowledge of marine species. And it would equip you with better knowledge for your next diving holiday to better identify the fish that you see.

Maybe 2 minutes won’t be enough to come up with fish names from A – Z and a 5-minute time limit would be more appropriate.

Here is some inspiration for your A B C of fish game:
A – angelfish, angler fish, anthias

B – bat fish, banner fish, butterfly fish, barracuda, box fish

C – cuttlefish, clown fish, comet fish, cigar wrasse

D – damsel fish, dart fish, dragonets

E – eagle ray, electric ray, earmuff blenny

F – file fish, frog fish, flute fish

G – guitar shark, garden eel, grouper

H – hawk fish, herring, harlequin shrimp

I – island pipefish, Indian butterfly fish, Indian bannerfish, imperial angelfish

J – jelly fish, jack fish, job fish

K – Kashmir Snapper, knife wrasse

L – lemon shark, lizard fish, lionfish, leaf fish

M – mandarin fish, moray eel, manta ray, moon wrasse

N – napoleon wrasse, needle fish, neon fusilier

O – ornate ghost pipe fish, oriental sweetlip, orange fin emperor, octopus

P – parrot fish, pipe fish, puffer fish

Q – queen coris

R – rock mover wrasse, razor fish, rabbit fish

S – squirrel fish, sting ray, soldier fish, scorpion fish

T – tuna, trumpet fish, trevally

U – unicorn fish, undulated moray

V – violet soldier fish, vermillion rock cod, Vlaming’s unicornfish

W – whaleshark, wrasse, white mouth moray, warty frog fish

X – ?

Y – yellow blue striped snapper, yellow margin moray, yellow tail anthia

Z – zebra shark, zebra moray, zigzag wrasse

For some letters we can come up with plenty of fish names for other letters like K, U and V we struggle and for X it is just outright impossible. Unless we start with Latin names, this however, would make the game more complex and could be the advanced version of the game.

Can you come up with some more fish names for the A B C of fish?