Coloring book . . . one more time? Good evening Bob, I sent you an e-mail a couple of days ago asking about the fish colouring book. Have you decided to can that idea? <What? No way. I must have somehow missed your email. Can you re-send?> I haven't heard back from you, so I was wondering. Thanks and have a nice evening. Christine <Thank you for the follow=up. I am still hoping that you and I can do this work and at least a "Fish Faces" children's book under the WWM heading. Be chatting, Bob>

Christine, here's the first go for our "Nemo" page: Spiel: Clownfishes are well-known for their symbiotic ("living together") relationships with Sea Anemones. All of the thirty two species of Clownfishes are found in association with one or more of ten species of Sea Anemones in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Red Sea. But they don't need to live in close association. Here (figure 1) is a batch of Clowns that were bred and raised in captivity. They're very happy to live without a symbiotic anemone. And thank goodness so! Anemones are not easy to keep alive in aquariums. Some other species of Clownfishes are shown. Figure 2 is a Skunk Clownfish, Figure 3 is a Tomato Clown... Whatcha think? More Nemos? Bob

Coloring Book: FW Sharks Spiel: Another group of minnows are called Freshwater Sharks. Unlike the "Jaws" sharks of the seas, these fishes lack teeth in their mouths and instead use processes further down their throats to grind their food. Most of the Freshwater sharks grow to about the size of your hand, but one, the Black Shark gets to be the length of your arm! Pictured: Figure 1 is the aptly named Red Tail Black Shark, Figure 2...

Coloring Book input Christine, switched to the WWM mail to load more pix! How about a page with an important group like the Damsels highlighted? Spiel: Damselfishes are a large family (325 or so species) of smaller fishes that are very important on the worlds reefs. Most make their homes in and amongst the branches of corals (figure 1), with some of them that are called Clownfishes, living in association with Sea Anemones.    These fishes form an important bridge between zooplankton, which they mainly feed on, to providing forage for larger fishes which feed on them.    Damselfishes come in many colors and markings (Fig.s 2-4), and live either in groups or individually. 

Coloring Book input Christine, we must have at least one Goldfish page/series... maybe even a fold-out in the middle of four pages? Spiel: The Goldfish is hands-down the favorite all-time aquarium animal. And yes, like domestic dogs, all the Goldfish are of the same species. There are many varieties... some with bulbous eyes, some with doubled tails or single, some shaped like eggs, or with no dorsal fin. The original Goldfish was cultured in China. The last two centuries, more types have been developed there, in Japan and elsewhere in the world. In the U.S.A. we developed the Comet (figure 1) Goldfish.    Goldfish are very hardy, but still require good care and regular maintenance. How about a Barbs page? Spiel: Barbs are members of the second largest family of fishes, the Minnows. If you look close at them you'll see they have a pair of barbels at the corners of their mouths... Most barbs are small schooling fishes living in freshwater in Asia and Africa. Some get to near a foot in length like the Tinfoil Barb (figure 1). Some types of barbs have been selectively bred, like the Tiger Barb (figure 2) that you can find in greens, colorless, even albino varieties. Others, like the Rosy Barb (figure 3) come in some very intense highly reflective types. (More spiel to come depending on which pix, species you pick). Bob

Re: Another suggested double page part for the Coloring book Hey Bob, Yeah, I think this would be really interesting as there are strong graphical elements. If I may suggest, strong graphical patterns on the fish, the clown trigger included, are grabbing to little eyes and inspires interest in filling them in. <Agreed. Will do my best to search through, re-scan for this trait> If algaes are to be included, I think we ought to choose a few distinctive types to include, some of the pics you sent are excellent candidates. Do you still want to include these? <Not necessarily. Will send you along a bunch of ideas, pix, and we can go back, forth till I learn what you think will work> Thanks and have a good night, Christine <Hey, I just woke up! Bob>

Aquatic Life Coloring Book So... maybe something like a large box above four smaller boxes on the left page... with spiel in the large box, photos in the smaller... and your line drawings in four boxes total on the facing (right) page for some of the Algae, with the spiel including: Algae, Originators of all Food Here are some microscopic up to very large algae, that make food by photosynthesis. Figure 1 is photo-micrograph of a Blue Green Algae called Scytonema, so small it would look like a thin strand of hair in your hand. Fig 2 is an underwater image of a Giant Brown Kelp stand. This type of algae can grow more than a foot a day in length and be over 200 foot long!... And maybe we could/would use the "multiple boxes" sort of layout for other groups... e.g. Sponges, Tunicates... where we/I don't have pix of numerous species large enough to fill the page... More to come, Bob

Another suggested double page part for the Coloring book How bout this? The four boxes on the left for spiel and pix, three on write to color in. Pitch: Take a look at these three fish. Believe it or not they're all the same species... the Bicolor Parrot. The baby one (figure 1) is only a few inches long and has a white body with a orangish bar on its head. The young turn into females (figure 2) that are also "bi-colored", in this case kind of uniform brown with a yellow upper body. This one's about a foot and a half long in the Red Sea. A few females grow even larger and become males! Figure three is a gorgeous male bicolor parrot of about three feet length. 

Re: Aquatic Life Coloring Book I've never met a kid who'll want to color algae... Tunicates, sure. Fishes, sponges, anemones, some corals... This will be a nice little book. -Zo <Okay... likely correct... just angling to toss some ideas out re more of "science" aspects...  How about this one then: On the left four boxes, one large on top and bottom with a double wide in the middle... the upper box has a spiel:  "The almost unbelievable Clown Triggerfish. This fish is a clown in more ways than its bright coloration and fantastic markings. It actually spends a good deal of time swimming upside down, and can be trained in captivity to do tricks like retrieve objects and swim through a circle! Figure 1 is a baby juvenile Clown Trigger in an aquarium. It's only an inch or so long. Figure two is a little more grown up at about two inches in length (note the change in color/markings, with more yellow on the head, and Figure 3 is a real Big Boy, a sixteen inch long adult in the wild." And the right hand page has three boxes with line drawings to color in... <Any better? Bob>

Re: Aquatic Life Coloring Book Now you're talkin'! I do understand your intention to make it as educational as possible - if I'm going to be in the loop, I'll be "angling" to keep it entertaining enough to hold the attention of a 5-9 yr/old. Also understand that algae is "under appreciated" by kids (adults!). Maybe we can come up with some photos that are exciting enough to do an algae layout after all. <Perhaps> How many pages? About 20 spreads? About $6/copy? Think of all the public aquarium giftshops! ;-) <Am doing so... maybe 100 or so pages... Bob> -Zo

Re: Another suggested double page part for the Coloring book Coming along nicely... Have started the collection that will eventually become the book. <Mmm, I was doing this "collection" just with Christine. Do you want to be involved in this project?> It would be good to crank these out as fast as possible (without terribly infringing on NMA-RF) because Chris is out for summer, and has time to do the illustrations during the next couple months. I imagine you (Bob, so far) can pump out a couple of these every day... and I think 30-40 of them makes a nice coloring book. <Yes... have a bunch of ideas... pix... though don't know how well all will/can work> If this is real, we should go ahead and work out the team roles, expectations, right about now. -Zo <Agreed. What is it folks want to do? Bob>