Customer Reviews

Fishes of the World

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The comprehensive coverage of fish taxonomy is immense. What else does $125 get you? A lot of nice line drawings. Comparable works with mammals and birds cost about the same, but have higher quality paper and photos/drawings. This book should be selling for about $60 considering what it is lacking visually. It is uncommon to have such a small (600 pages) book demand such a high price without any photos (black and white or color). If you think line drawings are just fine, that is not the issue. It is cost.

The taxonomy of this book is dated and should be revised. The author of the book is a quality ichthyologist. However, I will not buy this book because of the ridiculous price that Wiley and Sons is asking. I would not recommend that anyone buy this book at this price. All you get are line drawings and text. Surely, Wiley and Sons can do a better job for the community of people interested in the world of fishes!

This is the fourth, long awaited, edition of Fishes of the World.
Since the 2nd edition, it is THE reference for a STABLE PRACTICAL classification of all fishes of the world.
The work done by J. Nelson in the background is enormous, because for each node of the hierarchy are discussed and referenced the concurrent alternatives recently published, and is explained the choice made between them (so that one can appreciate the diversity of opinions, and the work remaining to be done).
Apart from the price that we can always find too expensive (and I am quite sure that he does not pay the author's efforts), the reviews of the previous edition missed 3 points:
- The book does not claim to give an overview of the biology and ecology of fishes, nor to give thorough illustrations of the diversity of fishes. The outlines are extremely useful to memorise the global shape of families and subfamilies. Ok, the 4th edition could have been complete in this area ...
- The book provides a management classification that is close enough of the last validated advances of research. Saying that it is not uptodate is a clear misunderstanding of what this book is useful for. In particular, it does not endorse the last published phylogeny (and by the way, a phylogeny is not a classification) if work clearly still needs to be done to establish and disseminate a new view: it tries to point out the most evidenced status of the classification, but presenting the alternatives: the people in need of one reliable classification can use it as such, the people closer to the edge of research can go further and use the information from the references given.
- I don't know any book in mammals, birds, snakes, lezards, turtles, amphibians that synthesizes the same amount of REFERENCED information, where there are altogether less species involved than in fishes! But sure, many of them have beautiful images ...
Thanks Joe.

I just received and looked over the Fourth Edition of Nelson's book. It is the most widely-accepted resource for fish classification. Specific points in the classification, as Nelson acknowledges, are subjects of debate and research. Nelson himself seems to take the classical approach of emphasizing morphological (as opposed to molecular) traits in his classification. However, the collection and organization of up-to-date references on the various fish groups in this book is without parallel and this makes the book hugely valuable. Two reasons in addition to cost for the use of drawing as opposed to photos to picture the fishes in this book are economy of space, and ability to convey fossil fishes in a similar manner to existing species. I'm glad that I bought it!

I have over 100 books on fish in my library & I would put this one in the top 5 ! Mr . Nelson covers it all . A must have for any fish nut like me ! If your looking for pretty pictures don't buy this book , but if you are looking for the classification of a fish species , this is the one .

This is a wonderful book. I should have bought and enjoyed earlier editions. Easy to read, and an excellent source of even local information. I find the line drawings much easier to use than some who have complained about them. The line drawings direct my attention to the critical areas of the fishes.

Comprehensive coverage makes this a great first reference. Most listings cite further in depth references. Published in 1994 it is probably due to be updated. The worst aspect of this book is the price. Get your library to buy it.

Very good book. It came very fast too...
I was really after it for my work....
It is considered reference for all ichthyologists.
My favorite!

For a book in this price range, we all want more. I have been doing fish illustrations in Environmental Biology of Fishes and some other journals. Dr. Nelson, you should contact me, we need to talk!!