[sci.bio] Identifying species of Marine Fishes

jason@CS.UCLA.EDU (02/29/88)

For all you biologists out there, I am posting as a computer scientist
with only hobby interests in ichthyology.  I am interested in eventually
trying to breed marine tropicals and would like to know how one goes about
doing a literature search on a species, or better yet, how one identifies
a given specimen in the first place, given only a local common name that
varies every 10 miles.

Please enlighten me as to the normal procedure one goes through in finding
out what has been written about a specific kind of fish.  Is there somewhere
a universal catalog of species, or is there simply a disorganized literature
with articles appearing in various journals in an ad hoc fashion.

I am interested in any kind of info, including journals of the field, good
books, well-known experts in the field, etc.

----Jason
Jason Rosenberg                      Mira Hershey Hall
                                     801 Hilgard Avenue
jason@cs.ucla.edu                    Los Angeles, CA  90024
{ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason         (213) 209-1806