Pacific Marine Fishes Book 4

fishes of taiwan and adjacent waters
by Warren Burgess and Herbert R. Axelrod

This book which ambitiously attempted to depict every marine fish species of a particular area, was once again more enjoyable in terms of looking at the pictures, than actually reading the text. Although it seemed not as dry as the last volume, and a bit more info bits on behavior of the fishes. I was a bit disappointed that several sections of photographs (or illustrations, when photos were lacking) in the book appeared to have no description- the parrotfishes, for example, were shown but not described in text. Perhaps they have details in one of the other volumes. I looked up some fifteen species, because although the details are very clear in the book's photos, the colors are usually duller than life. The christmas wrasse is particularly stunning, the lionfish and turkeyfishes are as always, fairly spectacular-looking, and the ribbon eel- blue or black- is mesmerizing if you find a video showing its swimming motion. Wow. Also lots of squirrelfishes, toadfishes, goatfishes, frogfishes, stonefishes, flounders or soles, chromis, clownfishes, gobies, rays, sharks and lots of open-water fishes -both predator and prey- are depicted. Such a wide variety of life in the seas.

Rating: 3/5             270 pages, 1974