RFI: Fish and Reef Critter Checklists with abundances????

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Hi:

I am a relatively new diver, and one of the things I really like to do when diving is looking for fish and other marine life. It is a bit overwhelming, there is so much to see and so much I don't know. I want to study ahead of time, but I am having a hard time locating "checklists" of fish and other marine life for any location. Everything seems solely focused on just identification, which I do with books and numerous web sites, but not any type of checklist. What I mean by checklist is something similar to what birdwatchers do a lot.

  • Typically a checklist will list all of the species in taxonomic order that you might see in an area. These are the least useful as it is just a list.
  • A better checklist will list the species and then some indicator of how abundant that species is. The checklist might indicate abundances with "A" for abundant, "C" for common, "U" for uncommon, "R" for rare, and "X" for accidental. Or something like that.
  • Sometimes the checklist will define these abundance codes, with something like "Abundant (A) means you are likely to see this species in large numbers 90% of the time". Or "Uncommon means you are likely to see this species 25% of the time". Or whatever.
  • Sometimes the checklist indicates the habitat a species is found in. For birds this might mean "forests" versus "mountains" versus "wetlands" (these checklists are often made for an entire park, which might encompass many habitats. In diving, this might be more oriented towards depths or open water vs. reef or caves or whatever.

The reason I want some type of checklist is so I can study appropriately ahead of time. I want to start with those things that are the most common, so I am not scrambling to figure out what 80-90% of the fish are, when they are the 20-25 most common things. If I know the most common things already, I can focus on the less common stuff.

However, almost everything I find in books and on the web are strictly fish/critter ID oriented. Not "these are the things you are likely to see". Are these available anywhere? My next trip is to the Florida Keys, but if there is a way to find something along these lines, it would be very helpful.

Thanks.

Andrew Donnelly
Austin, TX
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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