Indian Glassfish or Parambassis ranga

The more I dive, the more stuff we see and learn, says Clive. I am sure you must agree with me. One of the things that have lately struck me is how limited our knowledge is and that also goes even for revered  fish ID books like those of Helmut Debelius (Indian Ocean Reef Guide, and Red Sea Reef Guide), not to mention the bible of Southern African fish by Dennis King (Reef Fishes & Corals).


Let me give some examples of what I bitching about. Take the common Indian glass fish, Parambassis ranga or chanda ranga. It fails to get a mention in any of the three books of Debelius and also not on the Dennis  King I have. Yet the fish is very prevalent in Indian ocean waters (at least in Seychelles) and not only in aquariums. In a previous blog I discussed the annual Ranga Tanga.The glaring exclusion of glassies from the above  learned books remains  a mystery to me. Neither do they get a reference in Neville Coleman's Marine Life of the Maldives. Some  examples of the fish we talking about are set out in pictures  below.

                                                       (Close up courtesy-  Sue Ferreira)

                                                                      Even the resident turtle is coming for a peak.

Another  example of undefined or incomplete information is the different names for the karang (creole name) or golden trevally/jackfish or king fish. (This fish depicted below) There certainly also appears to be some confusion regarding the name in different parts of the world! Also have  a look at sting rays and see if you agree with me. Total confusion as we seem to have different names or an incomplete collection! There are some  other examples like this which you can spot in your own good time.

                                                     Karang on the prowl!

Finally Dennis calls the fish below a starry puffer fish and Debelius a giant puffer fish! They certainly got the Latin name (arothron stallatus ) right, but clearly they did not collaborate on local names used.

The only conclusion I have come to is that we really are only beginning to unravel the ocean. Both Dennis and Debelius have spent a  life time in producing extremely useful books. Without them we would have been lost underwater! We sorely need more of these and more information.

Knowing the time and cost of only one dive and the short dive times we have as well as the fact that the "underwater actors" have their own businesses to mind and are not "waiting" on us to come and snap them, I think it is a very simple fact  that we still lack so much knowledge. Please help on your next dive and bring some knowledge back.