Bombay duck

Bombay duck
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Aulopiformes
Family:	Synodontidae
Genus:	Harpadon
Species:	H. nehereus
Binomial name
Harpadon nehereus (F. Hamilton, 1822)

The Bombay duck or bummalo, Harpadon nehereus, (Bengali: bamaloh or loytta, Marathi: bombil, Sinhala: bombeli, Urdu: بمبل مچھلی) is, despite its name, not a duck but a lizardfish. Adults may reach a maximum length of 40 cm, but the usual size is around 25 cm.

The Bombay duck lives in the tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific. It has been traditionally caught in the waters off Maharashtra in the Lakshadweep Sea, where it is an important item of the yearly catch. This fish is also caught in the Bay of Bengal and in the South China Sea, although in smaller numbers.

The fish is often dried and salted before it is consumed, as its meat does not have a distinctive taste of its own. After drying, the odour of the fish is extremely powerful, and it is usually transported in air-tight containers. The Bombay duck is a popular food item in certain areas of India. Fresh fish are usually fried or cooked in curry.

The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is uncertain. One popular etymology relates to railways. When the rail links started on the Indian subcontinent, people from eastern Bengal were made aware of the great availability of the locally prized fish on India's western coasts and began importing them by the railways. Since the smell of the dried fish was overpowering, its transportation was later consigned to the mail train; the Bombay Mail (or Bombay Daak) thus reeked of the fish smell and "You smell like the Bombay Daak" was a common term in use in the days of the British Raj. In Bombay, the local English speakers then called it so, but it was eventually corrupted into "Bombay duck". Nonetheless, the Oxford English Dictionary dates "Bombay duck" to at least 1850, two years before the first railroad in Bombay was constructed, making this explanation unlikely.

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