Cod called cod: "Cod" forms part of the common name of many other fish no longer classified in the genus "Gadus". Many are members of the family Gadidae; others are members of three related families within the order Gadiformes whose names include the word "cod": the morid cods, Moridae (100 or so species); the eel cods, Muraenolepididae (four species); and the Eucla cod, Euclichthyidae (one species). The tadpole cod family (Ranicipitidae) has now been placed in Gadidae. Gadiformes include: Some fish have common names derived from "cod", such as codling, codlet or tomcod. ("Codling" is also used as a name for
Sacred Cod seals, and insignia such as the early crest of the "Salem Gazette". In 1743 a prominent Salem businessman built a mansion in which "the end of every stair in his spacious hall [displayed] a carved and gilded codfish." In the late 1920s an "amusing" (as H. P. Lovecraft termed it) codfish emblem appeared briefly, "totem-like", on Massachusetts license plates. What is now called the Sacred Cod has hung for three centuriesthough with interruptions, and in at least two (and possibly three) successive incarnationsin the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (or its predecessor, the House of Assembly of the