The specific epithet fishelsoni is named for Lev Fishelson, a Polish-born Israeli ichthyologist[REF][REF] who was part of the group that made the discovery while studying the intestines of a brown surgeonfish from the Red Sea in 1985 [REF].
They were initially classified as protists on the basis of their large size, until rRNA analysis by Angert, et al. in 1993 confirmed that Epulopiscium spp.