Fish ID "Bible" | Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas

Caribbean Fish | Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas | Paul Humann, Ned DeLoach

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	• Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas Paul Humann, Ned DeLoach New World Publications, 2002 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Beautiful reef fish guide

This colorful guide book to the reef fish of Florida, the Bahamas, and the Carribean is an excellent reference. Fish are shown in beautiful color pictures with information on size, shape, where to find them,and how they are likely to react to divers.
All the usuals are of coures here but so are many less commonly seen in guide books. Written information also includes descriptions of common variants.
An all around excellent book for the semiserious to serious snorkeler or diver who enjoys identifing what they see.

Fish ID "Bible"

At one time I was the head of a volunteer organization in WPB, Florida that assisted Palm Beach County with their artifical reef program. Part of the qualification was to get training in a variety of related subjects (like fish identification) sponsored by the Florida Oceanographic Society. This book served as our fish identification "bible." I no longer live in FL, but when I go diving in the Caribbean I stil take this book with me. If you need to (or just want to) know the fish of the Caribbean, buy this book.

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Caribbean Fish

This is a fabulous resource, and I wish we had bought it before to take with us on our trip to BVI

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When you want to know what you've been watching (or what was watching you)!

This is a reef fish identification book. This sounds obvious, but that really is the focus here. It's not a book to teach you about fish behavior, biogeography, community ecology, or population trends. Author, diver, captain, photographer, and attorney (!) Paul Humann took most of the 670 photographs in this book, a real accomplishment for any diver, since the result of a blurred or indistinct photograph of a fish is to... go get another.

The organization of this ID book is by fish shape. He's got 12 "identification groups":

- disks and ovals (colorful)
- silvery
- sloping head and tapered body
- small ovals
- heavy body and large lips
- swim with pectoral fins, and with obvious scales
- reddish and big eyes
- small, elongated bottom-dwellers
- old-shaped bottom dwellers
- odd-shaped swimmers
- eels
- sharks and rays

Any fish watcher would see the "logic" of this organization, although it could make some ichthyologists squirm with these sets of artificial groupings.

The book is spiral-bound so that the pages, when opened, stay open. And the clay content in the paper makes it more resistant to water dripping from your wetsuit or your hair. Just make sure you wipe it off, pronto.

Now the photos... They are very high quality, and Humann is to be commended for taking, or selecting from other photographers, pictures that really pull out the details of the various fish . For example, the Sergeant Major has the delicate yellow along the base of its dorsal fin, and those frogfish must be viewed in both a camouflaged condition and in a setting where they are contrasted with the background.

Any amateur photographer will soon discover the difficulty in getting a full, close-up and lateral view of a fish. They tend to swim away from you as you get close, giving you a great view of the tail sweeping away. These photos are the result of a truly amazing amount of patience.

In an appendix, he throws in some sea turtles and dolphins or good measure, as well as a checklist for keeping track of the reader's sightings.

My ocean diving has all been in the Pacific, and it was interesting seeing species related to my own "friends." If I get the opportunity to dive in Florida, the Caribbean, or the Bahamas, this will be the book I throw in my dive bag... in a zip-lock bag, of course.

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Impressive book.

As book reader and Diver, I just love this book, It gives me all the pictures and characteristics for an accurate evaluation of the creatures I found under water. Great pictures, and outstanding charcterization of fishes.

825 classic marine life photographs of 600 common and rare reef fish species. The easy-to-use, quick reference format makes it a snap to identify the myriad of fishes in Florida, Caribbean and Bahamas waters. A must for every serious diver. 6 inch x 9 inch, cloth stitched flexibinding that allows the book to lie flat.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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