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Welcome to the Home Page of Richard Field
Underwater Photographer
(Updated June 2018)
Mary and I lived in Oman from August 2001 until March 2006, after spending some 13 years in Jeddah on the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast. We are now both retired and living in Malta. We have been photographing and studying reef fishes since 1989 and have built a library of photographs of about 700 species present around the Arabian peninsula, which includes the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and Southern Oman (Arabian Sea). The photos concentrate on facilitating identification. In the Summer of 2013 we published our first ebook (updated February 2016) 'Reef Fishes of Oman', available now at your AMAZON bookstore The book is an updated and expanded version of REEF FISHES UAE and GULF of OMAN, which is now out of print. This essential guide to identification of fishes ranging from Khasab in the Arabian Gulf to Salalah in southern Oman contains over 500 photos of just under 400 species. OR, try the App for iphone and ipod Touch (which also works beautifully on ipad), developed by John P Hoover with content by Richard Field, at the Apple store. Oman Fish ID
NEW ! Red Sea Fish ID now available in the Apple Store.Note: If you are using an iPad, go to Apple Store and Search for "Red Sea Fish ID". Click Filters - Supports - iPhone only.
During our dives we sometimes come across some interesting 'non-fish' phenomena which Mary records in her pages. Click for Mary's page.
On this page we publish photos of species that show considerable colour differences according to age, sex or environment. Our diving colleagues frequently ask us to identify a 'new find' and so often they have been disappointed to know that it is just a variation of a common species. We do try to photograph all the variations that we see, including colour variations of the same species found around the Arabian peninsula.
We have many photos that we make available to scientific communities, including to FishBase, the encyclopaedia of fishes, which is part of the 'Species 2000' initiative to map the Earth's genome.
On a recent visit to southern Oman, north of Mirbat on the Arabian Sea coast, we found two species of 'cryptic' wrasses, one of which has not previously been reported from this side of the Arabian peninsula. Pteragogus flagellifer, the Cocktail wrasse (on the left) is widespread in the Indo-West Pacific region but Pteragogus pelycus, the Sideburn wrasse on the right, was previously only reported from Durban (South Africa) to the eastern Mediterranean. Cryptic wrasses are seldom seen by divers - they are well camouflaged and move slowly amongst weed or other areas of good cover. Pteragogus species (there are at least 10) are highly variable in colour and difficult to identify. The characteristics of these two species are the high first dorsal spines of the Cocktail wrasse and the long pelvic spines of the Sideburn.
If you have any comments or suggestions please contact me at richard@marinefisharabia.com
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Some common species found in the Arabian Gulf :
Dottyback .................................................. Pseudochromis persicus (colour form 1)
Dottyback ...................................................Pseudochromis persicus (colour form 2)
Grouper ................................................... Epinephelus coioides
Cardinalfish ............................................. Apogon nigripinnis
Goatfish ................................................... Upeneus oligospilus
Bamboo shark ......................................... Chiloscyllium arabicum
Emperor......................................................Lethrinus lentjan
New records of Oman marine fishes
Our photos on FishBase
©Note the photos shown on these pages are low resolution scans in high compression JPEG format. The copyright rests with Richard and Mary Field. Should you wish to use any of the photos, please contact us by email for permission. We receive many requests for educational and academic purposes and for these we are happy to give permission. We do not give permission for commercial use other than by arrangement.
12th August 2000
