reef fish and coral identification guide

[kairo11]

i am looking for comprehensive fish ,coral and invertebrates field guide for the gulf and south east asia.
what are your recomendations?

 

[Batfish]

Asia Pacific Reef Guide by Helmut Debelius covers SE Asia (Thailand/Philippines/Malaysia/Indo) - and the Indian Ocean Reef Guide by the same author covers everything from East Africa to Thailand. Great books with a lot more than just fish photos, there is loads of information and stories about marine life behaviour. They're not cheap books though.. retail something like 1900 Baht each.

 

[lord khram]

Asia Pacific Reef Guide by Helmut Debelius covers SE Asia (Thailand/Philippines/Malaysia/Indo) - and the Indian Ocean Reef Guide by the same author covers everything from East Africa to Thailand. Great books with a lot more than just fish photos, there is loads of information and stories about marine life behaviour. They're not cheap books though.. retail something like 1900 Baht each.

I agree. Excellent publications. Generally speaking you get what you pay for when it comes to this type of book as the price often relates to the ammount of work and research that has gone into corellating the information.
But there are always exceptions to that theory, such as the PADI fish ID slates.

 

[Zippsy]

I greatly prefer Paul Humann / Ned Deloach & co.'s Reef Fish Identification - Tropical Pacific and Reef Creature Identification - Tropical Pacific. The Debelius books are also good but ID'ing critters are much easier with the Deloach books because of the groupings and assistance. Point to note, however, is that corals are not really covered in the Deloach books. Also, the Debelius books have better stories about a several critters and fish characteristics but they don't have as much details and species.

 

[DevonDiver]

Books:

Slates:

 

[Quero]

I greatly prefer Paul Humann / Ned Deloach & co.'s Reef Fish Identification - Tropical Pacific and Reef Creature Identification - Tropical Pacific. The Debelius books are also good but ID'ing critters are much easier with the Deloach books because of the groupings and assistance. Point to note, however, is that corals are not really covered in the Deloach books. Also, the Debelius books have better stories about a several critters and fish characteristics but they don't have as much details and species.

I prefer Allen, Steene, Humann and Deloach's Reef Fish Identification Tropical Pacific to the Debelius books as well. It is far easier to use. I've just got a copy of Humann and Deloach's Reef Creature Identification Tropical Pacific, and though I haven't used it much yet, I'm impressed with it so far.

My very favorite reef guide is one that is out of print, unfortunately: Allen and Steen's Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide. That volume has an excellent treatment of corals and sponges, for example. For anyone who is really keen to get a copy of this book, there are out-of-print merchants who offer it, even through Amazon. Somebody should purchase the rights to this book from Singapore's apparently defunct Tropical Reef Research entity and re-issue it!

 

[Buadhai]

My very favorite reef guide is one that is out of print, unfortunately: Allen and Steen's Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide.

+1

This is an excellent book. I'm lucky to have purchased it back in the 90s when it was still in print. Unfortunately, it's so valuable now that I'm afraid to take it out in the field!

 

[Quero]

+1

This is an excellent book. I'm lucky to have purchased it back in the 90s when it was still in print. Unfortunately, it's so valuable now that I'm afraid to take it out in the field!

Me too! I won't take it on a boat or anywhere near the environment where the subjects of the book reside, and mine is an edition with a plastic cover even (and a paper dust jacket). It would be awful for it to get wet, and even worse for it to grow legs and walk off.

 

[Buadhai]

Exactly, which is why I've just ordered the Humann and Deloach volumes for use in the field!

 

[Buadhai]

Another fish-only book that seem pretty good is Gerry Allen's Marine Fishes of South-East Asia. This book contains painted illustrations rather than photographs. Although this means that the color might not be what you remember you saw, it does give the illustrator the ability to draw each fish in full profile and to emphasize distinguishing features which are also described in the text accompanying each illustration. The book has about 2000 illustrations.

I just got this book so haven't yet had any field experience with it.