Fish ID- Getting Started

There are hundreds of fish species inhabiting the Caribbean Sea.  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we will not see all of these species while snorkeling around Ambergris Caye in Belize.  Some species are found at depths much greater than we will be able to explore via snorkel, some species do not live on coral reefs, some Caribbean fishes are not found in Belize, and other species are so rare that our likelihood of seeing them is very low.  Thus, if you are able to learn to identify a relatively small number of species (probably around 50 - 60 species) then you will be able to identify most of the individual fish that you will observe in Belize, and more importantly when you recognize that an individual fish does not fall into one of the species that you have learned, you will know how to examine the specimen so that we are able to identify the species.

Still, learning 50 new types of anything can be a daunting task, so it makes sense to have a strategy that will allow us to learn to identify these species as efficiently as possible.  As you all should have learned (or taught), biodiversity can be classified in in a hierarchical scheme.  You should be familiar with Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species (I remember their order using the phrase "King Phillip Chooses Only Fancy Green Socks").  Actually, because fish are the most diverse of all of the vertebrates the classification scheme for fish is a bit more complicated than that.  Fortunately, because right now we simply want to learn to identify the most common reef fish species, we do not have to get bogged down by learning all of this.

But the fact that organisms can be placed into groups that have similar characteristics can work in our favor.  It turns out that often species classified in the same family share similar characteristics.  It turns out that it is relatively easy to classify many of the fish that we see to the correct Family.  Once you have identified an individual to a family, you have greatly narrowed down the list of possible species.  Once you are able to place species into family groups, then it is much easier to learn to identify different species that are members of that family.

In their book, Reef Fish Identification. Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean, Human and Deloach suggest the following scheme for getting started identifying fish,  They divide the fish fauna into 12 "identification groups" that can be separated from each other by characteristics that can be fairly easily identified by non-experts.  Within those groups, they further identify sub-groups, that often correspond to different Families.

Twelve Identification Groups

1. Disks and Ovals/Colorful
  - butterflyfishes, angelfishes, surgeonfishes

2. Silvery
  - dolphins, jacks, mackerels, wahoo, needlefishes, baracudas, bonnetmouths, bonefishes, snooks, mullets, porgies, mojarras, tarpons, cobias, slyingfishes, spadefishes

3. Sloping Head/Tapered Body
  - grunts, snappers

4. Small Ovals
  - damselfishes, chromis/damselfishes, hamlets/seabasses

5. Heavy Body/Large Lips
  - groupers/seabasses. seabassses, soapfises/seabasses, basslets

6. Swim With Pectoral Fins/Obvious Scales
  - parrotfishes, wrasses, hogfishes/wrasses, razorfish/srasses

7. Reddish/Big Eyes
  - squirrelfishes, bigeyes, cardinalfishes

8. Small Elongated Bottom Dwellers
  - gobies, blennies, dragonets, jawfishes

9. Odd Shaped Bottom Dwellers
  - 13 groups including flounders, scorpionfishes, lizardfishes,

10. Odd-Shaped Swimmers
  - 15 groups including trumpetfishes, tilefishes, puffers, boxfishes, triggerfishesm, filefishes, goatfishes,

11. Eels
  - moray, conger eels, snake eels

12. Sharks and Rays
  - nurse shark, pointed nose sharks, hammerheads, rays

Let's Get Started!!

It makes sense to start learning to identify species that are relatively easy to learn.  A great list of these species can be found in the REEF Species Gallery
http://www.reef.org/resources/galleries/caribbean

Try to learn to first place each of these 30 species into the correct Identification Group and then place it into the appropriate subgroup

Florent's guide to the Florida, Bahamas, and Caribbean Reefs will also provide a great place to start.
http://www.reef.org/resources/galleries/caribbean