Wrasses & Parrotfishes: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Their Identification, Behaviors, and Captive Care (Reef Fishes)

this book is still in very good condition eventhough this is a used book, very informative for fish hobbist from the great Scott W. Michael

Wonderful book, full of pictures and information, a must have for any diver or aquarium hobbyist! My only criticism is the lack juvenile pictures and lack of Parrotfishes compared to Wrasses but this could be due to the fact that most Parrotfish grow to large for a tank! reviewed by [...]

All of the books in this series are top rate. The text is geared towards aquarium keeping, but does include a good amount of natural history too. The photos are very good.

Excellent book, as usual with this (never ending) series...A must buy if you are interested in reef fishes.I hope the next one does not take as long...

its beautiful

a bible for wrasse lovers

Excellent book

There is really only one true complaint I can make regarding this volume, it is literally nothing but almost 400 pages devotes entirely to wrasses and parrotfish.Which brings me to the best part of this book: it's 400 pages of wrasses and parrotfish.Now, to be fair wrasses are one of the biggest fish families, but the length is entirely justified. While the parrotfish section is still of very high quality, it is of limited use to aquarists due to their rarity in the fish trade.First the book itself: this isn't something you'll want on a dive boat or to take to the fish store. This is a lovely, well-bound hardback with good picture printing. It holds up to heavy handling well.Every species described (and it covers every fish I've ever heard of, I know of no omissions in this volume) includes at least one, and for most wrasse species multiple, beautiful color photographs. There is usually a juvenile, adult, and female example of every species due to the variant patterns between sexes and ages. All of the pictures are of high quality and are taken well.The fish themselves are broken up by taxonomy, and every genus gets a brief summary of the species and fish within the genus and some of what an aquarist or diver can expect from them. Each species is described by scientific name, common name (or names), and maximum size. From there it the depth of coverage varies widly based on how commonly they are encountered in the wild or the tropical fish trade, ranging from a few sentences to a full page or more. It tends to cover biology and behavior in the wild, captive care, minimum aquarium size and temperature, and finally a "aquarium suitability index". Finally, any other pertinent remarks round out the entry. In general, this includes the most impressive and comprehensive coverage of any given animal I've encountered in any book.In and of itself this is a poor reference for an aquarist or diver due to how limited the scope is. However, the reef fishes series is by far the most impressive, in-depth, and ambitious attempt to provide an incredible reference series on marine life. If you have series interest in learning about fish for any purpose other than basic identification this is by far the best investment. Unfortunately at the moment another reference is required since there are still multiple volumes left to round out the series. Still, there's more information per dime in these than anything else I've seen. Volumes 1 through 4 (though only volume 1 is actually labelled by volume, the rest are labelled by two of the larger groups covered within) are well worth it and honestly necessary to really get the most out of this book. I cannot recommend these books highly enough.

This is indeed a reference guide to all the fish you could or shouldn't keep in your aquarium. It started as a series of 5 books, now it's resceduled for 8. You can reed them as seperate books, without having to buy the others. Most editions include more group than stated in the titel, so make sure you look at the content to know what's in there. Before you decide on buying any fish buy this book! Even if you bought your fish already it's still usefull for background information on biology and (if possible) reproduction.This book is really as stated in the titel on 'wrasses and parrotfishes'. There's enough information on the species in the two groups to fill a whole edition.

If your anything like me and love all things MotoGP then I cant rate this book highly enough!Fantastic insight into the last 60 years of MotoGP including top quality colour photos, technical discussions and rider info.Great Read!

As with all Scott W Michaels' books that are in my possession, this too is an excellent reference book. Good quality publication. Plenty of decent photos for reference. A breath of fresh air to read such highly informative literature.

Excellent

What it said on the ouitside of the tin was great, but there is very little in this book, just alot of mediocre, filler-photos to pad it out and some very sketchy text that could've been lifted from one of the mags. I enjoy actually reading about the sport and the characters and for that price I expected alot of detail, but you could digest this book in a couple of hours. Very disappointing.