Labridae Fishes: Wrasses looks like the ultimate wrasse book, the Wrasse bible written by one of the masters of reef fish books Rudie Kuiter. Stacked on top of some of Rudie Kuiter’s great works is the new wrasse book which appears to be twice as big as his previous fairy & rainbow Wrasses. The older wrasse book by Kuiter is still a very important work for identifying the wrasses of the aquarium trade it mostly only covers the flashers, fairies and smaller sized labrids. We’d be surprised if Labridae Fishes: Wrasses didnt get really close to covering nearly all of the 500-something wrasse species, at least all fo the tropical ones. We’re not sure yet when or where this book can be special ordered but with it’s heft and a-la-carte availability, we estimate this book will land in the hands of fish nuts all over the world for no less than the equivalent of $175-250. That is unless a big player works out some deals to get the book printed by the dozens at which point it’d still cost a pretty penny. If Rudie Kuiter’s current bibliography is any indication of what this book will be like, it’s likely that Labridae Fishes will be a seminal volume on wrasses for a long time to come. We’ll let you know when we find out some more solid details Labridae Fishes.

update: we just received a reply from the author Rudie Kuiter who has confirmed this is a very big, very expensive book. The Labridae Fishes contains nearly 400, A4 sized pages, covering nearly all 500 species of wrasses with thousands of images. Mr. Kuiter is printing the book 10 copies at a time and with the number of pages and heft, the book is selling for AU$350 with shipping in Australia, or about $300 before it even leaves the land down under. Three benjamins is a lot of money for a book but no doubt the die hard wrasse lovers and fish book collectors will still put down that kind of coinage to have the ultimate book on Labridae Fishes.