Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Glossy, Broad and Shallow, August 23, 1998
Finding a comprehensive fish identification book for the South Pacific is surprisingly difficult. This volume is one of the most popular and widely available choices, but buyers should be forewarned.The volume covers a very wide-range of topics, from the invertebrates to the fishes, giving the appearance of a thorough and comprehensive guide. Unfortunately both the text and the photos do little more than scratch the surface. Each family is covered with just a single page of text. Each fish is covered with just a photo and label identifying it, without any discussion of the species behavior, identifying marks, or similar species. Worst of all, in my limited South Pacific diving experience I've encountered many species that are not included in this book at all. I suspect it probably includes no more than 75% of the commonly encountered coral reef fishes, not enough to be an authoritative source for fish identification. The section on sea turtles includes photos of just two species, plus a drawing of all six species without any labels to tell you which is which. All in all, an attractively packaged but unfinished effort.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Serious Fish-watchers, June 20, 2000
Over many years, I have looked for a good guide to reef fauna. Last year, I settled for this one and probably won't look further.This one is very good for identifying everything from sponges to turtles. Each type of creature (usually a phylum or an order) is organized into its own chapter, which begins with a couple of pages of general facts that generally cover reproduction, feeding, and interesting characteristics. Then come the pages of very good color photos of each variation (there are over 20 different clownfishes identified... not bad!) These are labeled with their common name and their Latin name. But unlike Margaret Gremli's Marine Life in the South China Sea (albeit a less complete and orderly field guide), Allen and Steene's book does not offer any interesting tidbits of information NEXT TO the creature's photo. Each entry is just a name, sometimes with a height in centimeters. In other words, it's great for getting the exact name of the fish you just spotted forty feet down, and your dive log will gain some cred, but you won't immediately find any descriptive text or amusing information about that fish in its entry. Don't get me wrong, this is a great field guide, and it took me 10 years to find this. But some divers may prefer the "hey, did you know...?" format of Gremli's book (ISBN 9 789624 215427, published by APA Publications (H.K.) Ltd).
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
By and large a reliable companion, January 19, 2003
...BR>This book is intended to be used to identify marine organisms by comparing photographs with the live specimens seen or photographed while diving or snorkeling. Although a paperback it is quite a strong book and withstands extensive handling quite well without falling apart. It has helped me to identify most of the marine organisms I encountered in the waters around Bali. A zoologist by training I am not only interested in fishes, but also in all kinds of invertebrate organisms, such as soft and hard corals, nudibranchs, tunicates, echinoderms, worms, molluscs, etc. I therefore noted with particularly pleasure that these are very well represented. For instance, when for the first time you see what looks like white strings on corals or rocks you wonder what the heck that could be. The book informs you that these are spaghetti worms! Ever heard of them? In my experience photographs are more suitable than drawings for finding a resemblance between picture and live specimens. And whereas I realize that it is not easy to photograph fishes, especially not the shy species, I wished a few times the pictures to bear a closer resemblance to the real specimens. It would be to the book's advantage if improved photographs were included when a new edition is prepared. At present, however, there is no alternative to this book.
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