Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide | Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide

good book for what it's good for: the one to bring with you | Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide | Gerald R. Allen; Roger Steene

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	• Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide Gerald R. Allen; Roger Steene Sea Challengers, 1998 - 378 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Ambitious but superseded

I bought this book a long time ago, and while I still find it occasionally useful, I must also add it is quite superficial - many Indo-Pacific species are illustrated, but the accompanying texts are minimal, outdated or simply non-existent. To put it simply, it has been superseded by several newer titles devoted to the same area. Divers, underwater photographers and reef aquarium keepers should consider instead the more recent, complete, updated and infinitely better illustrated Reef Fish Identification - Tropical Pacific by Gerry Allen, A Diver's Guide to Reef Life by Andrea and Antonella Ferrari and A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife by Andrea and Antonella Ferrari - the latter, despite its limiting title, representing in my opinion the final word on Indo-Pacific critters, at least for the time being.

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Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide

For divers, this is the best book I have seen out there. It is loaded with pictures of just about every marine wildlife in the ocean. This is perfect for divers logging fish seen. Great pictures to identify with a small description to go along. Just what every diver needs. I have not found it anywhere in domestic dive shops. I got my first copy while diving in Australia. It is worth the money. I got a sincere thanks from my friend that I gave my second copy that I got from Amazon.

good book for what it's good for: the one to bring with you

A number of reviews criticize this book for its lack of depth. Hello, it's a field guide. It's a single book on all kinds of Indo-Pacific marine life in and around coral reefs--everything from algae to sea turtles. So this is the compact reference we bring with us on Indo-Pacific dive trips. We have most of the other books mentioned in other reviews, and we use them a lot when we're back home poring over our photos. For example, "Coral Reef Animals of the Indo Pacific" is great but it's only for invertebrates, while this book covers everything.

One other advantage of this book is that it only contains common critters. Odds are what you saw is common, so we use this book first and only go to our others if by some chance what we saw wasn't common.

I haven't seen one other all-purpose guide mentioned in other reviews. It may be better than this but it has one drawback from my point of view: it includes Red Sea and Caribbean critters. I want to pack one field guide, and I want it to be region-specific. Caribbean biotopes in particular are so different from the Indo-Pacific region that such a guide is necessarily going to be cluttered with stuff that's irrelevant to an Indo-Pacific trip.

The airlines are getting more and more restrictive about luggage, and the internal carriers (such as Merpati within Indonesia) are worse. I used to bring half a dozen underwater guides. Now I just bring this one, and so I need it to cover everything I see--not just fish--but nothing from elsewhere--such as the Caribbean.

It's great to see shots of juvenile and male/female fish, which you get with more detailed/heavy/specialized guides. We have such books at home. For our hotel room or liveaboard cabin, though, this one will do, and do nicely.

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As its name implies, a good field guide

I have owned this book for about 2 years. I must say that I always brought this book with me every time I go diving in the Indo-Pacific region. It has a rather extensive coverage of the species that you may encounter while diving in this region. Nearly all of the photos are of good quality, allowing for easy identification. Of course, there are species that you may not be able to find in the book. Anyway, I don't think that you can find a book covering all species and it's handy enough to allow you to bring with you while you're on a holiday. Don't expect that this book will give you extensive background information on the behaviour, reproduction... As its name imply, it serves as a field guide for identification of the species and only basic but adequate information elucidated. All in all, I would recommend this book if you want an coral reef identifier of the Indo-Pacific region.

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Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide

Best field guide that is in print for the Indo-Pacific Region. Used it to identify sea life on the Great Barrier Reef.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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