TROPICAL FISH

A compact pop-up portrait gallery of finny favorites.

It looks like a slapdash effort, with blurry, often imprecisely cut reproductions for illustrations and perfunctory informational notes. Preceded by a 3-D side view of a colorful lion fish behind a clear window on the cover, a pop-up specimen of the same in the round gives way with page turns to a toothy piranha lunging up at viewers, two clown fish peering out from a silhouetted sea anemone, and five other denizens of reefs and shallows. Each comes with a grab bag of arbitrary-feeling general facts about fish anatomy, locomotion, adaptations, or behavior—all of which are tucked behind side flaps so that (aside from an identifying label) the fish float unencumbered by distractions against minimally detailed marine backgrounds. Hawcock gives eight butterflies and moths similar (mis-)treatment in his co-published Butterflies, with at least one factual error in the notes (hummingbird hawkmoths cannot fly at 56 kph).

Possibly of minor interest as display items but otherwise dispensable.