Monday, June 9, 2008
TARP Fish website up
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Website on the way
Incidentally (as I have also mentioned in TARPFish), a recent snorkel appears to have turned up another few new species for me in TARP and I'll post the additions when I get round to it.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Worryingly fascinating species estimates...
Worryingly however, Allen also mentions in a table on p.48 of the Raja Ampat report that surveys in TARP (I believe he was referring to his own unpublished survey made in 1992 of which I can not find a copy) gave a CFDI of 139 with an estimated fish species richness of 450 (against 357 actual species he found which he puts down to incomplete sampling). I don't want to believe the implication that 25% of 1992's fish species no longer exist in TARP. I'd prefer to believe that I am simply an incompetent and amateurish fish-watcher, because if not, what will the future bring for TARP?
Thursday, May 29, 2008
1 out, 299 down
A useful e-mail came in a couple of days ago which I've just been able to process - namely, POMACENTRIDAE authority Gerry Allen has noted that my adult Pomacentrus grammorhynchus was in fact a juvenile Pomacentrus tripunctatus en route to becoming an adult. My juvenile P. grammorhynchus photos were already somewhat suspect for having such tiny granules of blue on the top of the tail base. "Discretion is the better part of valour," as Falstaff has noted (Henry IV Part 1) and I have decided to withdraw P. grammorhynchus from my TARP fish checklist for the time being; hence the total I have seen till now drops back below 300, to 299. Tantalisingly, the juveniles may represent another species not yet on my checklist but until confirmed, I'll leave them out of it.
I have also amended the foldable checklist.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Checklist improved
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).
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Five panels amended
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).
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Checklist now on-line
Sunday, May 11, 2008
11 more fish added
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Another 8 species identified
This Stargazer was a real beauty though. What an ugly face!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Omissions take it to 281 species
Monday, April 28, 2008
It's complete!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Percoids finished
Percoids begun
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Labroids finished
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).
Friday, April 25, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Blennies & Gobies on line
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Surgeons, Bats & Rabbits
Seven Bony Fish Families Listed
Incidentally, close examination will reveal that I have used a watercolour effect to show the pictures since this both looks nice and makes up for the poor quality of some of my photos (some fish are just too hard to photograph well since they only show themselves briefly before racing away!)
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Online Fish Identification Resource Launched
Being an amateur with limited Systematics resources to hand, I expect to make mistakes and I hope you will bear with me. If you have a good reason (with a reliable source) to question one of my diagnoses, I would be very pleased to correspond with you.
The best way to view the catalogue is at my web album using a viewing add-on called PicLens which can be used with major browsers like Explorer and FireFox. This will allow you to easily and quickly scan a long wall of images to find where you want to focus your attention before zooming in for more details.
NB: ANY DANGER WARNINGS ARE ADVISORY ONLY - I make no guarantee to be right either in making or missing a warning. Check any species carefully via FishBase for better advice than mine.
I will update the blog whenever I add a tranche of pictures and hopefully the whole list will on line soon. After that, I'll make regular amendments and additions in due course.
If you are interested in other aspects of life in, and the context surrounding, TARP then take a regular look (or set up a feed) at my TARP Watch blog.