DR. Burgess's Atlas of Marine Aquarium Fishes

By

DR. Warren E. Burgess
DR. Herbert R. Axelrod
Raymond E. Hunziker

With more than 4000 Photos in full color

Introduction

This Atlas of Marine Fishes is designed mainly as a Pictorial aid for the identification of Marine Fishes. The Thousands of photographs are all that will be needed for most aquarists to identify species that they are keeping in their tanks or that they have seen in their local marine fish store. They will also be able to find for the most part fishes that they are likely to collect along their own shores, including those that occur only in the cooler waters of temperate coasts. Further, many fishes are included that are too big for hobbyists but will be seen in the ever-popular public aquariums where large reef tanks or ocean ariums house larger fishes, including sharks. Whenever possible, different aspects of a single species are shown. That is, where juveniles are different from adults or males differ from females, both (or even all three) are shown. Ichthyologists have even been fooled by some species that appear so different as a juvenile or as one or the other sex. This has prompted additional names for fishes that had already been named previously. The name applied to the fishes in these photographs is the name that as far as known is the currently accepted name for the fish and supersedes any name applied to it in our previous publications. The most recent scientific papers and books were used to determine the correct names. However, certain obstacles are always present that prevent identifying some of the species with absolute certainty. First of all, since the fish is represented in a photograph only and not "in the flesh" where some of the diagnostic counts or measurements could be made, educated guesses must be made using what available information there is. This information may be color pattern, geographic locality, or even identifications by a photographer who is knowledgeable in fish systematic and has actually seen the fish itself.

Whenever possible color proofs were sent to experts in the field for identification. Dr. Gerald R. Allen kindly identified members of the family pomacentridae, Dr. Victor G. Springer did the same for the blennies, Dr. Guido Dingerkus identified the elasmobranchs, Dr. will liam N. Eschmeyer did the scorpionfishes, Dr. William F. smith Vaniz did the carangids and some blennies, and Dr. Douglas Hoese tackled the gobies. Unfortunately, some plates were not available to these experts at the time so these identifications were accomplished to the best of my (W.E.B.) ability and should not reflect on the expertise of these scientists.

The common names applied to these fishes were taken from current scientific literature whenever possible. Unfortunately, in some instances (as also happened in the scientific names) there was disagreement (even by the same author in two papers), so that one or the other name was selected. Space does not permit the inclusion of alternate common names or scientific synonyms.

Prep/ Asmaa Ahmed

REV/ Ayman Ashry

Manage/ Zeinab Mahmoud Osman