Most divers are familiar with the IKAN marine life guidebooks published by Helmut Debelius and friends. You can find these handy hard cover books in just about every diver resort and liveaboard boat in the region, usually with divers huddled around frantically looking for the fish or other critter they just encountered.

Now, after much hard work, FiNS Consultants Rudie Kuiter and Helmut Debelius have released their most ambitious and comprehensive marine life guidebook to date. At 720 pages, the new World Atlas of Marine Fishes covers 4200 fish from around the world with over 6000 photographs. That’s right. 720 pages, measuring 28.0 x 20.5 cm, 5.5 cm thick, and weighing around 3 kg…this is one serious guidebook.

The book focuses just on fish, beginning with cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, chimaeras) and continuing through all the major bony fish. Chances are, if you’ve seen a particular fish on a dive, you’ll find it in here.

Of course, given the heft and extensive nature of the book, it’s probably not something you’ll be throwing in your carry-on baggage for a dive trip. However, it’s definitely a resource you’ll want your dive resort or liveaboard to have on hand, so you can immediately figure out what you saw on your last dive.

And for fish fanatics, this book is as good a place as any to start when you want to ID a fish. Each section contains descriptive text to help place your mystery fish in context, and the abundant photos make it easy to find a visual match.

Order your copy now for S$198 via the finsonline.com shop.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Books.