Field Guide To Marine Fishes Of Tropical Australia and South East Asia by Gerard Allen

Blogged by Simon on February 09, 2010 10:55pm | Last updated by Simon on February 10, 2010 4:59pm |

Field Guide To Marine Fishes Of Tropical Australia And South East AsiaThis fish identification guidebook is the latest addition to my bookshelf. Much like the Coral Reef Fishes field guide by Lieske and Myers, it uses hundreds of illustrations, carefully hand-crafted by artists Roger Swainston and Jill Ruse over a period of three years especially for this book. The quality and detail is nothing short of spectacular and surpasses even the previously mentioned ‘Coral Reef Fishes’ in comparison.

As the title suggests, the book’s author Dr. Gerard Allen specializes in Indo-Pacific species, covering 1500 tropical fishes ranging from Australia to Thailand, Indonesia and New Guinea. In the short time I have used it, local coverage has proven to be very good and I was able to identify Pufferfish from a trip to Indonesia that I previously hadn’t.

Field Guide To Marine Fishes uses scientific classification and also provides a small introduction to this notation in the first chapter. If latin names are not your thing and you are starting only with a rough fish shape in mind, there is an excellent chapter containing black&white outlines of fishes sorted by family, which really sets this book apart from others.

In it’s 4th edition, published in 2009 by the Western Australian Museum, this is a recommended buy for all interested scuba divers, naturalists and underwater photographers.

Comment using Facebook

Not on Facebook?

Sign in using Google | Twitter | Yahoo

or:

Fill in all fields below and press submit