Coastal Fishes of New Zealand provides a comprehensive, informative and up-to-date identification guide to the fishes likely to be encountered by New Zealand divers and fishers. Illustrated with over 275 superb colour photographs of live fish in their natural habitats, this book includes all of New Zealand's common reef fishes, and also many of those that live in other habitats. Using the latest research, marine scientist Malcolm Francis also provides a wealth of other information about identifying features, geographical distribution, habitat and size for 221 species of fish. Other interesting biological features, such as feeding, growth, spawning and behaviour are also discussed. If you were to have one book on the abundant fish life found around our coasts, this is the one to own.
Malcolm Francis is a Principal Scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, specialising in the biology and fisheries of coastal and open water fishes, particularly snapper and sharks. He has been the author of four editions of Coastal Fishes of New Zealand, co-authored Sharks and Rays of New Zealand, and was the co-editor of the award winning The Living Reef: The Ecology of New Zealand's Rocky Reefs.