Ichthyology
Ichthyology
The geographic emphasis for the fish collection focuses on the tropical Indo-Pacific region, with additional holdings from the tropical Eastern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Currently, the collection includes over 40,000 cataloged lots of coral-reef fishes, with a geographic emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region, and a habitat emphasis on fishes from tropical coral reefs. Most specimens are preserved in 55% Isopropyl alcohol, and are contained in glass jars. About half of the lots contain only a single specimen, but some lots contain over 100 specimens (average 2.8 specimens per lot, or about 100,000 specimens total). The collection also includes many large specimens contained in stainless steel or fiberglass bins, the largest of which is the Holotype of the Megamouth Shark (Megachasma pelagios).
Ichthyological research at Bishop Musuem has primarily focused on the taxonomy, systematics and biogeography of coral-reef fishes throughout the vast Indo-Pacific region. While the collection does house specimens from freshwater, pelagic, and deep-sea environments, the overwhelming majority of the collection was accumulated through the research career of Dr. John E. “Jack” Randall. Jack has authored more publications (880) and has discovered and documented more new species of coral-reef fishes (815), than any ichthyologist in history. He has also published landmark studies on food habits, mimicry, hybridization, and reproductive biology of fishes, and was instrumental in understanding the cause of Ciguatera fish poisoning. After serving Jack as Ichthyology Collections Manager, Arnold Suzumoto retired in 2023 and care and management of the collection is now in the capable hands of Ichthyology Collections Manager, Calder Atta.
Jack Randall passed away in 2020 at the age of 95, but his legacy continues through his protégés, Dr. Richard L. Pyle and Brian D. Greene. They both worked with Jack for decades, and they continue to follow their mentor’s lead in exploration and discovery on tropical coral-reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific. In particular, they have pioneered the use of mixed-gas closed-circuit rebreather technology to explore coral-reef habitat at depths below where conventional SCUBA can be safely used. These efforts have led to the discovery of more than a hundred new species of fishes, as well as helped foster an international recognition of the deep coral-reef environment, variously known as the Coral-Reef “Twilight Zone” or, more recently, “Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems”. Led by Cassie Ka’apu Lyons, the collection is expanding its scope to include larval fishes, which have not historically been well-represented in the collection but are fundamentally important to marine fish biology and biogeography.
Calder Atta, Ichthyology Collections Manager
808-848-4130
calder.atta@bishopmuseum.org
Richard L. Pyle, PhD, Senior Curator of Ichthyology
deepreef@bishopmuseum.org
Brian D. Greene, Ichthyology Research Specialist
brian.greene@bishopmuseum.org
Cassie Ka’apu-Lyons, Ichthyology Research Specialist
cassie.kaapu-lyons@bishopmuseum.org
Samantha Rickle, Ichthyology Collections Technician
samantha.rickle@bishopmuseum.org
To request a back of house collection tour please fill out our online Natural Sciences Collection Tour Request Form
The collection holds virtually all of the known species of reef and shore fishes in the Indo-Pacific region. Also, it is the best maintained, documented, and identified collection of Indo-Pacific fish species in the world, with numerous collecting sources. It is particularly well known for material collected and studied by John E. Randall, one of the most prolific and widely respected fish researchers in the region, who began working in the collection in 1965 and a continued to publish on fish systematics and biogeography until the end of his life at age 95, in 2020. Randall’s protégés, Dr. Richard L. Pyle and Brian D. Greene, continue to add to the collection with an emphasis on collecting specimens from deep coral reef ecosystems (so-called mesophotic coral ecosystems, or the coral-reef “twilight zone”), using advanced diving technology. More recently, the collection has expanded to include many specimens of fish larvae, led by Ichthyology Research Specialist Cassi Ka‘apu-Lyons. The collection is managed and maintained by Ichthyology Collections Manager Calder Atta, who has risen to the challenge of perpetuating the collection after taking over from long-time Collections Manager Arnold Suzumoto, who retired in 2023.
Bishop Museum also holds the world’s first Megamouth, the most surprising and famous shark discovery of the twentieth century, scientifically known as Megachasma pelagios, the great yawner of the open ocean. Megamouth sharks are deep water plankton feeders, rarely seen in the wild by humans.
The collection is fully digitized, with complete and annotated records for all specimens entered in the database, and many of the film images scanned. In addition, the collection also houses an estimated 70,000 large-format color images of prepared specimens and 35-mm underwater photographs, which are in the process of being digitally scanned in high resolution by Ichthyology Collection Technician Samantha Rickle. The management systems employed by the Museum are maintained according to the latest and most complete transactions and collections models and national standards.
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