Gerald Allen (1)

Before we found Kuiter’s 7 Tonozuka’s Indonesian Reef Fishes book, this Reef Fish Identification Tropical Pacific by Allen et al was our favourite. It is very comprehensive, and unlike many other books we had before this one has not only photos but proper text explaining the specific feature to identify each fish. This is important as many fishes, indeed many marine creatures, have similar look. Photographs alone are not enough to help novices like us to get the correct species.

The show more authors are all well known underwater photographers with photos featured in many books and magazines. They also authored similar reef creature books for other areas.

Martin still uses this book more than the Kuiter-Tonozuka one because he’s been using this as his fish bible for a while, hence is more familiar with it. One thing that is sometimes a bit annoying is because the common names used in the book are sometimes so bizarre it confuses us. These names are often so different from those found in other identification book. Of course the Latin names are still the same but common names are what people familiar with.

However considering this paperback is more affordable than the other one, it’s well worth it to include in one’s bookshelf, if one likes fishes, that is :) show less