This beautifully illustrated marine fish guide encompasses the singularly diverse and rich oceans from southeast Asia to Australia Marine Fishes of Southeast Asia contains nearly 2,000 hand-painted illustrations featuring 1,635 individual species. The paintings were completed over a 3-year period and are primarily based on photographs or color transparencies of either live fishes taken underwater or freshly caught specimens. In many cases preserved specimens at the Western Australian Museum have been consulted to ensure accuracy of detail and proportions. The end result is a colorful and highly comprehensive guide to the sea fishes of northern Australia and the adjacent Southeast Asian region.

Visitors to South-East Asia are usually astonished at the profusion of marine life that exists in this biodiversity hot-spot. Reef Fishes of South-East Asia is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to this rich diversity. Covering the waters off the coasts of Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, this compact book, illustrated with vibrant colour photographs, is an essential companion for anyone interested in the undersea world, from the casual snorkeller to the most experienced diver. It includes concise descriptions of 270 species of fish, corals and invertebrates, accompanied by 300 full-colour photographs, and information on habitat, diet and behaviour. Clear line drawings are provided for quick identification of fish families, and a short introduction covers reef conservation and practical tips to help you get the most out of your visit to the region.

This book is the first on the history of the marine fisheries of Southeast Asia. It takes as its central theme the movement of fisheries into new fishing grounds, particularly the diverse ecosystems that make up the seas of Southeast Asia. This process accelerated between the 1950s and 1970s in what the author calls the great fish race . Catches soared as the population of the region grew, demand from Japan and North America for shrimps and tuna increased, and fishers adopted more efficient ways of locating, catching, and preserving fish. But the great fish race soon brought about the severe depletion of one fish population after another, while pollution and the destruction of mangroves and coral reefs degraded fish habitats. Today the relentless movement into new fishing grounds has come to an end, for there are no new fishing grounds to exploit. The frontier of fisheries has closed. The challenge now is to exploit the seas in ways that preserve the diversity of marine life while providing the people of the region with a source of food long into the future.

The distribution and important biological features of the major coastal fish resources in the region, covering fin-fish, both pelagic and demersal, shrimps and cephalopods, are reviewed.