The Fishes of Pennsylvania, By Jay R. Stauffer Jr., Robert W. Criswell, and Douglas P. Fischer. Cichlid Press, El Paso, Texas. 2016. 556 pages. US$49.50<\/p>\n

The last major treatment of the fishes of Pennsylvania was the 1983 publication Fishes of Pennsylvania and the Northeastern United States<\/em> by Edwin L. Cooper. This current volume is a welcome advanced edition to the fishes of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. An advantage over the previous edition is its beautiful glossy photographs of habitat; full-color photographs of all of the fishes represented in habitat simulated situations; and 196 distribution maps, divided into pre-1940, 1940-1989, and 1990-2015 distributions over the six major drainage basins of the state. There is also an abundance of black and white photographs and line illustrations pointing out key features used in the identification keys. In addition, each species is given a current conservation status and general remarks aimed at a mixed audience of professionals, conservationists, and anglers.<\/p>\n

The structure of the book consists of the first 69 pages divided into six chapters providing important background information, which includes an introductory chapter giving a brief history of Pennsylvania ichthyology, a chapter outlining the major watersheds and drainage basins of the state, a brief discussion of conservation of fishes in Pennsylvania, and a synopsis of sport fishing in the state. This is followed by a chapter on basic fish anatomy, outlining the features used in the family and species keys, and a chapter giving a brief history of the study of fishes in Pennsylvania. This interesting and useful background information is then followed by the main section of the book, chapter Vll, a thorough description of the families, genera, and species historically reported from and\/or currently found in the state.<\/p>\n

This main section of the book begins with an excellent dichotomous key to all of the 28 families covered in the text, including the page where the family discussion begins. This is then followed with a dichotomous key to all of the species in each family, some 200 species in total, unless there is only a single species in the family represented in the state. These keys are excellently constructed and illustrated making for ease of use. I have tested all of the family keys and the majority of the species keys and found them user friendly and accurate. The format of the text is to provide a brief description of the family, followed by a description of the genus, and then the species within that genus. The characters of each species are fully described and match the points made in the keys. This is followed by a discussion of the distribution and habitat and then a section on the biology of the species including life history, fecundity, and diet. The final paragraphs for each species consist of the current global and state conservation ranking including notes of interest to the conservationist and angler, such as stocking history. All of this information is accurate, well presented, and clearly written, making this a very useful book for professionals and non-professionals alike.<\/p>\n

There is also a useful glossary and index, and an extensive literature cited section. My one criticism of the work is that not all of the citations in the text are found in the literature cited section, and this can be frustrating. This was a particular problem in chapter lll, \u201cThe Conservation of Fishes in Pennsylvania,\u201d but was found at a minimum in all of Chapter Vll, the main section of the book. This should be addressed in any future revisions of the book.<\/p>\n

Joseph W. Rachlin,<\/p>\n

Professor<\/em><\/p>\n

Laboratory for Marine & Estuarine Research (LaMER)<\/em><\/p>\n

Department of Biological Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

Lehman College, Davis Hall Room 217<\/em><\/p>\n

250 Bedford Park Boulevard West<\/em><\/p>\n

Bronx, NY 10468-1589<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

REFERENCE<\/em><\/p>\n

Cooper, E. L. 1983. Fishes of Pennsylvania and the northeastern United States. The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park. <\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”6044″ img_size=”medium” title=”The Fishes of Pennsylvania”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text]BOOK REVIEW The Fishes of Pennsylvania, By Jay R. Stauffer Jr., Robert W. Criswell, and Douglas P. Fischer. Cichlid Press, El Paso, Texas. 2016. 556 pages. US$49.50 The last major treatment of the fishes of Pennsylvania was the 1983 publication Fishes of Pennsylvania and the Northeastern United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3468,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/science.fisheries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}