The Driver's Guide to
Red Sea Reef Fishes
By
John E. Randall PHD
Contents
This book has been printed on a special plastic material with waterproof inks so that it can be taken into the sea or handled with wet hands. It should be rinsed in fresh water, towel-dried after use and stored away from direct sunlight.
Approximately 1,000 species of fishes occur in the Red Sea. The 325 selected for this book are the ones most likely to be seen on coral reefs or adjacent habitats. Thus those fishes which are strictly pelagic, occur in deep water, in brackish or muddy environments, or live on broad expanses of sand or seagrass are, in general, excluded.
All but 57 of the 325 species in this book are found outside the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden; therefore the book will be of use to divers, snorkelers and fishermen in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific as well. Many species of tropical and subtropical fishes range from the Red Sea and East Africa to the islands of Oceania.
This book is a diver's supplement to the conventional paper edition of Red Sea Reef Fishes which has the text. This text provides general remarks on each of the families of reef fishes and separate accounts of the 325 species. The colour photographs found in this waterproof book also appear in the larger volume which contains, in addition, 78 underwater photographs of fishes. The introduction includes remarks on how fishes are classified, the zoogeography of Indo-Pacific fishes and a historical resumé of the most important early ichthyological research in the Red Sea . There are labelled illustrations to show the external parts of fishes and an extensive glossary of ichthyological and other biological terms.
The observer must keep in mind that many reef fishes exhibit considerable variation in colour. Some have a very different pattern as juveniles; others such as wrasses (Labridae) and parrotfishes (Scaridae) may differ markedly in colour with sexual development. A change in sex from female to male is generally accompanied by a dramatic alteration of colour pattern. Species which show strong sexual dichromatism have been illustrated in this book with two figures, and some juveniles which are significantly different in colour from adults are also portrayed. Many reef fishes are able to alter their background colour rapidly as they move over different bottom types. A grouper swimming from a reef to a sandy area will usually become paler. Some fishes such as rabbitfishes (Siganidae) instantly adopt a strong mottled pattern when they come to different colours. They may have, for example, a fright pattern or one betraying aggressive behaviour. Some take on different hues during (Siganidae) instantly adopt a strong mottled pattern when they come to courtship or spawning. Anyone diving with a light at night will soon notice that the majority of fishes, whether they are active nocturnal species or quiescent diurnal ones, will show some difference in colour from their basic daytime pattern. Sedentary fishes are often protectively coloured like their surroundings. Thus a frogfish living around black tunicates may be black but another of the same species associated with yellow sponge may be yellow. These colours require the development of pigment cells in the skin, so a change in overall colour takes considerable time. Yet another difference in colour is apparent according to the depth at which certain fishes are found. It is, of course, not possible to illustrate all the colour variations of each species of fish in a book of this size The length given in each caption of the figures below is the total length in centimetres (cm) of the fish illustrated .
ساحة النقاش