Fishes: An Introduction to Ichthyology

I had the very fortunate opportunity to take Dr. Moyle's ichthyology class at UC Davis. We used this book as our text. The book was very helpful, and well explained. Moyle and Cech go into a great amount of detail in this text, and yet convey it in a straightforward and understandable way.

The authors did a great job with diagrams, fish anatomy, and physiological descriptions. Probably the most interesting section of this book is the ecology. Though some sections were more scientific than others and hard to keep focus at times, I still highly recommend this book to students or beginners.

Moyle and Cech's text reads like two books, Cech's introduction to fish anatomy and Moyle's discussion of behavior and conservation (which is precisely how they use the text in their UC Davis classes). While first half of the book is much more technical than the second half, both are accessible to the non-specialist. I hadn't taken Biology since High School and was able to process most of the material with minimal referencing of secondary sources. Both authors are good writers who incorporate subtle humor and have the ability to convey some of their passion for fish making this a somewhat less dry text book than the general tendency. I learned an incredible amount from these pages and highly recommend this text.

This is really a great text book that covers everything from anatomy, behaviour and fish senses, passing through each fish order, until reach valiable aspects of fish comprehension, like zoogeography and aquatic ecology. Because it's scientific writing, the book is fullfilled with graphics and diagrams, so in the beginning the unaware reader should feel such level of difficulty, but it doesnt compromises at all the inner knowledge the book wants to pass. Sure an awesome title!

I am an avid fish fanatic. Moyle and Cech have produced what should be the greatest book of scientific interest on the subject. Seems like there is a but there? There is, this is a text book. If you are taking ichthyology, an upper level (sometimes graduate level) course on fishes this book will be your best friend. It is critical to understanding the largest group of vertebrates. It is well organized, fact filled and well cited. But, if you don't have Biology one and two, some chemistry, physiology and an introductory zoology course behind you it will lose you at the introduction. Even though I rate it high I would wait until a professor says you have to buy it.