Shore Fishes of Easter Island is a new guidebook of marine fish written by John Randall and Alfredo Cea and published by University of Hawaii Press. When most people think of Easter Island they invariably think of Moai, the monolithic heads of Easter Island, or the cautionary tale of the runaway deforestation of the Rapanui culture which left the entire island completely denuded of any trees, but not us.
When we think of Easter Island we think of Easter Island pygmy angelfish, Centropyge hotumatua, Easter Island damselfish, Chrysiptera rapanui, Easter Island butterflyfish, Chaetodon litus, schools of femininus wrasses and loads of other awesome and unusual fish. Since Easter Island is so far off the beaten path of Pacific Ocean travel we haven’t seen any collections from the area in many years, although the local endemic pygmy angelfish used to be somewhat available. The 176 pages of this $35 book is about as close as most of us are going to get to the shore fishes of Easter Island when it becomes available later this month.
