guamreeflife

reef fishes

Myers and Donaldson (2003) reported 1,106 fish species from the Mariana Islands, with 1,020 of those classified as shorefish species. While these shorefish species were not further grouped by general habitat (e.g., coral reef, estuarine, and deep reef habitats), and include freshwater and coastal pelagic species, the vast majority inhabit coral reefs. Since the publication of the 2003 list numerous additional fish records have been recorded from Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The reef fish groupings below are based on those used in Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific, by G. Allen, R. Steene, P. Humann, and N. DeLoach. These groupings are used to aid in the identification of fishes by non-specialists, and do not necessarily imply close evolutionary relatedness among fish families within a given group.

689 Mariana Islands species out of 1016 reported | 1073 Indo-Pacific species | 93 Western Atlantic species