2 Fishes Photos

[Vivien]

Establishedin 1894, The Field Museum's Division of Fishes now contains more than 1,750,000 specimens, 130,000 lots, 10,000 species, 4,500 tissue samples, 3,500 skeletons, 1,400 nominal types (6,550 specimens), and 450 families. Our collections have grown out of the cumulative effort of 12 past and current curators and countless professional staff, students, and associates. This emphasis on the collection and research of freshwater and marine fishes has made The Field Museum a leader in the evolutionary biology of fishes.

The Labeled Fishes in the Wild image dataset is provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service to encourage development, testing, and performance assessment of automated image analysis algorithms for unconstrained underwater imagery.

The dataset includes images of fish, invertebrates, and the seabed that were collected using camera systems deployed on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for fisheries surveys. Annotation data are included in accompanying data files (.dat, .vec, and .info) that describe the locations of the marked fish targets in the images.

The manuscript (Cutter et al., 2015) demonstrates methods for automated detection of fish based on classifiers developed using the training image dataset, and evaluated using the test set. This dataset is offered for further development of detection of fish or invertebrates in complex environments; tracking of multiple animal targets in video image sequences; recognition and classification of animal species; measurement of animals in stereo image pairs; and characterization of seabed habitats.

Recommended citation: Cutter, G.; Stierhoff, K.; Zeng, J. (2015) "Automated detection of rockfish in unconstrained underwater videos using Haar cascades and a new image dataset: labeled fishes in the wild," IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision Workshops, pp. 57-62.

Labeled fishes in the wild has three components: a training and validation positive image set (verified fish), a negative image set (non-fish), and a test image set. The training and test sets have accompanying annotation data that define the location and extent of each marked fish target object in the images. These represent bounding rectangles defined by expert analysts, and are in the format of .dat files used by OpenCV.

This set contains images of rockfish (Sebastes spp.) and other associated species near the seabed, collected using a forward-oblique-looking digital still camera deployed on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center during surveys of rocky seabed environments offshore of southern California. Still frames from these cameras represent instances during a survey where the ROV was moving slowly, and motion effects are not a factor. The training set comprises 929 image files, containing 1005 marked fish with associated annotations (their marked locations and bounding rectangles). The marks define fish of various species, sizes, and ranges to the camera, and includes portions of different background composition.

This set includes 3167 images. The 147 seabed negative images provided in the downloadable archive were extracted from the labeled fishes in the wild training and test image sets (regions containing no fish were extracted).

This second edition describes the nine biophysical regions and the 97 natural community types recognized in Vermont in 2019. It contains practical information for naturalists, teachers, students, landowners, land managers, foresters, conservation planners, and everyone who loves the outdoors and wants to learn more about their surroundings.

The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department is pleased to announce the publication of a new field guide, Fishes of Vermont, the only comprehensive handbook for identifying fishes across the state. This field guide offers fascinating natural history accounts of our 92 fish species. From mountain trout streams to the waters of Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River, this valuable resource covers all the drainages and aquatic habitats of the state. Fishes of Vermont is written for anglers, naturalists, biologists, and anyone interested in fishes and Vermont's natural resources.

Fish & Wildlife's Conservation Art Series features the three wildlife designs of Vermont's Conservation License Plate. The image for the brook trout plate was painted by former Fish & Wildlife commissioner Patrick Berry. The deer and loon images were painted by Berlin, VT artist Linda Mirabile

This video shows a group of Alabama shiners (Cyprinella callistia) exhibiting spawning behavior around a rock crevice. The males are the brightly colored animals with bluish-white patches on their heads and red tails. The white patches are formed by tubercles (tiny horns or bumps composed of Keratin), which may function in combat between rival males and in signaling reproductive status to females. A few females (with a gold lateral stripe but without tubercles or distinctive coloration) can be seen darting into the crevice. The male and female will swim along the crevice and deposit eggs and sperm (you cannot see this in the video, but it is probably going on). Other males may also make solo runs along the crevice in an attempt to fertilize some of the eggs. Crevice spawning, which is characteristic of minnows in the genus Cyprinella, is considered an adaption to reduce predation on eggs. Photo and video by Brett Albanese (GADNR).

Our diverse fish fauna makes fish identification in Georgia challenging, even for ichthyologists. If you have a good photograph of a fish that you caught or observed underwater, you can usually get an approximate identification using a combination of photos and range maps. Our Fishes of Georgia Photo Gallery on Flickr is organized by fish family and has many photos of freshwater and coastal fishes that can be viewed on your computer or with the Flickr app on your smartphone.

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Millions of people take animal pictures during wildlife interactions, yet the impacts of photographer behaviour and photographic flashes on animals are poorly understood. We investigated the pathomorphological and behavioural impacts of photographer behaviour and photographic flashes on 14 benthic fish species that are important for scuba diving tourism and aquarium displays. We ran a field study to test effects of photography on fish behaviour, and two laboratory studies that tested effects of photographic flashes on seahorse behaviour, and ocular and retinal anatomy. Our study showed that effects of photographic flashes are negligible and do not have stronger impacts than those caused solely by human presence. Photographic flashes did not cause changes in gross ocular and retinal anatomy of seahorses and did not alter feeding success. Physical manipulation of animals by photographing scuba divers, however, elicited strong stress responses. This study provides important new information to help develop efficient management strategies that reduce environmental impacts of wildlife tourism.

Despite the lack of scientific evidence, a multitude of regulations exist related to photographing marine wildlife based on the unsubstantiated concern of causing (temporary) blindness in animals, either while scuba diving or visiting aquaria. Public aquaria around the globe prohibit the use of flash while taking photographs, without any scientific evidence to support the ban. Scuba dive resorts in Southeast Asia often restrict the use of flash while photographing pygmy seahorses29 and in the U.K. a ban on using flash while taking pictures of seahorses is in place, despite open acknowledgment of a lack of evidence to support the ban10.

Charismatic and cryptic species such as seahorses (two families within the sub order Syngnathoidei) and frogfishes (family Antennariidae) are highly popular with underwater photographers and are often displayed in public aquaria26,30. Cryptic species such as these depend on camouflage to avoid predation. Many are slow swimmers not capable of fleeing from scuba diving photographers. Flash photography does not affect site persistence of seahorses, but touching them elicits, at the very least, short-term stress behaviours23. Species like seahorses are visual predators that rely on accurate resolving power to catch prey. Any reduction in visual acuity or sensitivity is likely to reduce survivorship31. The high intensity light of photographic strobe lights could theoretically result in phototoxic retinal damage. This damage could be either short term or permanent retinopathy due to photothermal, photomechanical and/or photochemical effects of high retinal irradiance. Retinopathy has been previously observed in mammals, including humans (e.g.32,33), and also in the photoreceptors of teleosts (e.g.34,35). However, a link between flash photography and damage to the eye structure of animals has yet to be shown. In addition, questions remain about the effects on fishes of scuba diver behaviour associated with flash photography, in particular the potential effects on feeding efficiency due to temporary reductions in visual acuity and other stress responses.

To answer these questions, we conducted an in situ behavioural experiment on 13 species of teleosts from three families (Syngnathidae, Solenostomidae and Antennariidae) commonly found at dive sites throughout Southeast Asia (Fig. 1). We then ran two controlled aquaria experiments to assess the behavioural and pathomorphological effects of flash photography on a species of seahorse. Specifically we set out to: (1) Quantify the effects of diver behaviour associated with flash photography on slow-moving, cryptic fishes; (2) Assess the effects of photographic flashes on the Western Australian seahorse (Hippocampus subelongatus) and (3) Examine the pathomorphological impacts of photographic flashes on the ocular and retinal anatomy of H. subelongatus.

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