Detail:  Livebearing fishes like guppies and mollies and platies and swordtails ahve always been the most popular fishes in the aquarium hobby, probably as much for the fanstastic array of vivid colors and fin patterns they show as for their hardiness and ease of breeding. If you want to consider also their general availability and reasonable costs as assets that have added to their popularity, fine - those factors are just that much more frosting on the why-livebearers-are-popular cake.

Whatever the resasons behind the great demand for livebearers, it's likely that they will always be the most popular species in the aquarium trade, which make Atlas of Livebearers all the more pertinent and valuable. No other book ever published has succeeded as fully in combining the presentation of taxonomic detail with brilliant full-colour photos, plus a full consideration of the purely practical aspects of maintaining and breeding livebearers. In the latter respect, for example, a full section is devoted to the genetics involved with breeding colour and form mutations of the most popular species. Additionally, among the beautiful full-colour photos included in this book are numerous views of actual collecting areas in which livebearing species have been found by the author and others.

This monumental volume is plainly and simply the biggest and the best book available about the fascinating lievebearing fishes of the aquarium hobby - all of the livebearers, the rare species as well as the old favorites.