TARP Fish website up

My new TARP Fish website is now up and running. See TARP Watch for more details. The new website is expected to replace the functions of this TARP Fish blog, so I do not expect to publish any more here, but for the sake of the archive and so as not to break links already established 'out there' I will not close it for the time being.

Checklist improved

As well as several corrections, the first draft checklist has now been amended to include the original species author's name, the year the description was first published, and a link to a bibliographical reference to the original, given by Eschmeyer.

Furthermore, most species now also have a link inserted directly to their relevant FishBase page (a number of mirror sites exist around the world and I have tended just to link to the easiest to connect to from my location at the moment I created the link - this can vary but all sites are mirrors of each other anyway; in general I find the Philippines home server for FishBase the least reliable connection so I usually use either the Taiwan mirror or the Swedish mirror).

Five panels amended

It's inevitable that the first draft of this collection would have mistakes: two careless ones have recently been corrected (Pholidichthys leucotaenia picked up the wrong Species name first time round when a previous panel was used as a template - I had mistakenly let it slip through as P. fasciatus; additionally, I missed out a letter when transcribing Ctenogobiops pomastictus first allowing it to be C. pomasticus). More important is to rename a fish originally identified by an apparently junior synonym: what I said was Halichoeres purpurescens appears more appropriately named Halichoeres leucurus (search Eshmeyer to compare). I have corrected this (as per the example shown here) in both the Initial and Terminal phases. The knock on effect has been the need to change a comment under the Initial phase form of Halichoeres melanurus which made reference to H. purpurescens.

Incidentally, a number of other fish face a similar predicament (Eshmeyer versus FishBase) but I have left them alone for now firstly because there is only one entry in FishBase for them so there should be no confusion - FishBase tends anyway to default to its preferred name when a species search is done (whereas there are entries for both H. leucurus AND H. purpursecens so I wanted to clarify my association), and secondly because in most cases the difference is just the Species suffix which technically according to the ICZN should match the gender of the Genus but FishBase appears to favour the original suffix given when the fish was first named, whilst Eschmeyer appears to have attempted to correct the suffixes of Species as their Genera evolve).

Labroids finished

With the 9 species of Parrotfishes (in 11 panels), I've now completed uploading the Labroid fishes. Interestingly (and I hope not ominously for TARP), I seem to have found it easier to photograph Juveniles and Initial phase fish than the Terminal phase ones. Anyway, I'm now up to 143 species (in 161 panels); over halfway.

Incidentally, I found a new government site today called SyMBiosIS with a growing database of fish found in Malaysian marine waters. (Unfortunately it presently has only 106 species listed and includes both non-reef fishes and those from Peninsular Malaysia which is over 1,000 miles away from here and includes an Indian Ocean coast, so it is ultimately likely to be too general for TARP. However it should allow cross-checking of unexpected species when it is eventually declared to be virtually complete).