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An Underwater Guide to Hawaii
Ann Fielding and Ed Robinson
A compact, photograph-rich field guide to the marine life a snorkeler or diver is likely to meet in Hawaiian waters. Marine biologist Ann Fielding supplies the text — explaining how the islands' isolated reef ecosystems came to be and introducing the fishes, invertebrates, and habitats of the near shore — while Ed Robinson contributes more than two hundred color photographs. The result sits between a picture book and a working identification guide: authoritative enough to name what you saw, inviting enough to read on the lanai before you get wet. Published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1987, it has stayed in print as a standard introduction to the archipelago's underwater world. Anyone heading for a Hawaiian reef with a mask, or simply curious about Pacific marine ecology, will find it a friendly, accurate companion.
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The authors
Ann Fielding is a marine biologist and educator who has written several accessible guides to Hawaiian and Pacific sea life, drawing on years of fieldwork in the islands. Ed Robinson is an underwater photographer whose images document the reef communities the text describes.
The book
An Underwater Guide to Hawai'i combines a readable natural history of the islands' reefs with a large photographic section keyed to the species most divers and snorkelers encounter. It explains the biogeography of an isolated volcanic archipelago — why Hawaiian reefs host so many endemic species — and then helps a reader put names to them.
How it reads
Clear, warm, and still useful. Taxonomy and some conservation status have shifted since 1987, so serious identifiers will want a current supplement, but as an orientation to Hawaiian reef life it remains a well-loved standard.
For more context
Pair with a current reef-fish identification guide and with Hawai'i's marine-protected-area regulations before diving.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Ann Fielding and Ed Robinson
- Publisher
- University of Hawaii Press
- Place of publication
- Honolulu
- Year
- 1987
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Nature
- Location
- Colorado