Reef fishes of the Bird’s Head Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia

Gerald Allen; Mark Erdmann

doi:10.15560/5.3.587

Check List 5(3): 587-628, doi: 10.15560/5.3.587

Reef fishes of the Bird’s Head Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia

Gerald R. Allen, Mark V. Erdmann

Corresponding author: Gerald Allen ( tropical_reef@bigpond.com )

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Allen G, Erdmann M (2009) Reef fishes of the Bird’s Head Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia. Check List 5(3): 587-628. https://doi.org/10.15560/5.3.587

Abstract

A checklist of shallow (to 60 m depth) reef fishes is provided for the Bird’s Head Peninsula region of West Papua, Indonesia. The area, which occupies the extreme western end of New Guinea, contains the world’s most diverse assemblage of coral reef fishes. The current checklist, which includes both historical records and recent survey results, includes 1,511 species in 451 genera and 111 families. Respective species totals for the three main coral reef areas — Raja Ampat Islands, Fakfak-Kaimana coast, and Cenderawasih Bay — are 1320, 995, and 877. In addition to its extraordinary species diversity, the region exhibits a remarkable level of endemism considering its relatively small area. A total of 26 species in 14 families are currently considered to be confined to the region.

Keywords