Customer Reviews

Reef Fish Identification - Tropical Pacific

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book revolutionised fish ID in the tropical South Pacific when it first came out. We live and work in Fiji in the marine environment and have 4 of these on our shelf (for use of staff in the field as well as office)

The only drawback we find is the bizarre choice of common names. There are already a plethora of other books out there with common names fairly well established in Fiji by Lieske&Meyers. Seems to follow more of an Australian theme for these than the prevous Paul Humman books which use the American common names.

But overal a MUST for any diver who visits the Tropical Pacific. If you use it in conjunction with Lieske&Meyers then if you don;t find the fish you're looking at, prepare to be published!

This is an outstanding fish ID manual for the Pacific and Indian ocean region. It beats out others books of a similar nature with the number of photos (6 on every page for a total of over 2,500 pics) and the helpful identification notes below each pic along with the average size of the fish, localised habitat(if any)and pictures of the juvenile fish alongside the adult as well distinguishing feature between male and female forms and arrows pointing to distinguishing marks between similar fish of the same species. Fish are easily found from a photo you took or memory, as it places them into 20 identification groups according to body shape. The pictures are not quite the same quality as The Asia Pacific Reef Guide by Helmut Debelius but they are good enough. Unlike most books of this type it is fish specific so does not include any pics of molluscs, crustaceans, cephalopods, nudibranches, corals or other denizens of the ocean. You have to go to his Reef Creatures ID book for that in the excellent 3 volume Reef Set. Great book, highly recommended.

Easy to use and identify your photographs, particularly for an experienced diver used to identifying many types of fishes

I was living on the Sea of Cortez and bought this (before Humann came out with the Baja to Panama book). It would be a great guide in Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, etc. but it's just about useless in Baja.

If you are looking for good fish books for Baja, my choices (out of the dozen or so I own) are:

Reef Fish Identification: Baja to Panama -- If I had to pick just one, this would be it. It's really designed for identification and some of the others are better to learn about the fish once you've identified it. Tons of color photos.

Sea of Cortez Marine Animals: A Guide to the Common Fishes and Invertebrates Baja California to Panama -- A good compromise between identification and learning about the fish. Covers most of the common fish, but not as many as the above. Uses color photos.

Reef Fishes of the Sea of Cortez: The Rocky-Shore Fishes of the Gulf of -- Best book to learn about the fish, but not as strong on ID. Covers a lot of fish. Some color photos, other B&W photos, many drawings.

Fishes of the Pacific Coast: Alaska to Peru, Including the Gulf of California and the Galapagos Islands -- Inexpensive, pocket-sized book, color drawings, short info on each fish. Best book for edibility information.

I just came back from a dive trip to Bali and spent a week, off and on, IDing the fish I'd photographed. This book turned out to be the most useful. It includes photos of a lot of color/sex/age variations that proved invaluable. This book also puts little arrows in many pics to point out features that help differentiate a fish from otherwise similar ones--I found that to be very useful.

However, though it's the best book for tropical Pacific fish IDing, I did find that I needed to cross-reference it with several others in ambiguous cases (and many cases were ambiguous!)--particularly one Aussie book that uses paintings instead of photos: "Marine Fishes of South-East Asia" by Gerry Allen (though this book often uses different common names, so you'll have to go by scientific names in many cases to correlate it with American texts). Sometimes a painting can highlight features a particular photo won't show clearly. And this book shows some interesting fish that aren't strictly coral reef fish, which nevertheless you might see on a trip (think mahi-mahi, flying fish etc.).

Lastly, you should also have a general underwater guide, for 3 reasons: (1) this is what you should actually bring with you on a trip, leaving larger, heavier, more specialized books like the one being reviewed here at home (especially with current luggage weight restrictions). (2) A general guide, such as "Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Guide" by Dr. Gerald R. Allen & Roger Steene, also has everything from corals to sea snakes. (3) Any given fish you see is probably a common one; a general guide will only show common fish. So you'll generally want to look here first.

The book I'm reviewing here is organized for identification rather than scientifically. It uses 20 ID groups, such as "disk-shaped/colorful" and "odd-shaped bottom dwellers." This is appropriate since it's a fish ID book.

If you dive in Pacific/Asian waters--and that's the best diving on Earth in my experience--and you'd really like to know what the heck you saw--get this book.

This is a very ambitious work - the number of Indo-Pacific fish species illustrated is simply staggering, often showing regional variations and juvenile forms. On the other side, image quality and reproduction are often disappointing, and the minimal texts limit its scope somewhat. It will make an unbeatable identification and learning combo when paired with the equally interesting but infinitely better illustrated A Diver's Guide to Reef Life and A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife by Andrea and Antonella Ferrari - both featuring excellent written texts, exquisite color photographs and - in the case of the latter - hundreds of entries for cephalopods, crustaceans, nudibranchs and various other invertebrates. With these three field guides in your library almost no Indo-Pacific fish or critter will be able to escape identification!

This book is amazing! Pictures are really very nice and description are detailed but not too difficult to understand.
It is suitable to all the divers who want to know more about the habits of all the creatures they have met during their dives!

Since we live on the Indian Ocean, many of the species are not present her, nonetheless it is a very useful companion to other guides on fish of the Indian Ocean. The other guides (Smith's Sea Fishes & Coral Reef Fishes) we have are mostly illustrations so it is useful to have live pictures of fish to compare and confirm identification. The photographs are very good and are of a very high quality.

It would be useful for enthusiasts like us to have a place to make comments about fish behaviour, etc especially for aquarium keepers like us who can learn from each other.

Thank you, John
Asha Cottage, Diani, Kenya

Paul Humann is well known in the diving community as setting "the standard" in marine identification. I also understand that Gerald Allen is well known in the area as an "expert" of the tropical pacific waters. This book does not disappoint. I would recommend the Reef Creatures edition also, as this area is well known for its "critters" and anyone who dives in the area will want that also.

Reviewed for web site:- whats that fish. Wonderful book, full of pictures and information, a must have for any diver!