The purpose of this “Divers’ Guide to the Plant Life of South Pacific Coral Reefs” is to make marine plant identification possible for both the sport diving community and professional marine scientists who venture into the fascinating undersea realm of South Pacific reefs. Depicted are the major species found during more than 2,200 SCUBA dives over a 10-year period throughout Tahiti, Cook Islands, Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Great Barrier Reef. More than 370 stunning underwater photographs showcase the major seaweeds. Over 70 additional images depict ‘ecological phenomena” in photographic sidebars.

South Pacific Reef Plants features underwater color photographs of each plant on the right facing pages, with a list of key characters to the left of each photo. The location and depth of every photograph is given at the bottom left corner. The descriptions, habitat information, distributions and notes of interest appear directly across on the left facing page to facilitate identification. The photographs were selected to emphasize the characters that enhance visual identification. A specimen can thus be “picture-keyed” initially, then positively identified by using the dichotomous keys in conjunction with the key characters.

STRI staff scientist D. Ross Robertson and Gerald R. Allen from Western Australian Museum produced the CD Shorefishes of the tropical eastern Pacific: An information system in English and Spanish. The tool allows identification, description and geographical distribution of fishes, their size, diet, depth, habitat and reproduction with 1,195 species from Mar del Cortéz, México, to Cabo Blanco, Perú, Galapagos, and more. The program allows users to enter a few characteristics of the fish to retrieve an array of possibilities, thus finding the species and its full description and image. This powerful tool is not only intended for the scientific community, but also for the fishing industry and sports, divers, aquaria, and the general public. Available through the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute bookstore (stribookstore@tivoli.si.edu) for $10 plus shipping.