Ned DeLoach, co-author with Paul Humann of nine marine life field guides, discusses his search for biodiversity in the sea. Focusing on the rare, beautiful and bizarre Ned and his wife Anna, always on the lookout for the unusual, share their recent adventures tracking down Pearlfish larvae, flasher wrasses, blennies and jumping jawfish.
After college Ned DeLoach moved from his childhood home in West Texas to Florida so that he could do what he loves best - dive. In 1971 he completed his first diving guide to the state, Diving Guide to Underwater Florida, currently in its 11th edition. Through the 1970s and 80s he was active in Florida’s cave diving community and writing dive/travel pieces for underwater magazines. In the mid-80s he began working with Paul Humann, as co-editors of Ocean Realm magazine.
In 1989 the pair published their first field guide, Reef Fish Identification, Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas, which launched an extensive library of visual marine life field guides for tropical oceans around the world.
Acquiring the thousands of photographs of new and undocumented marine species for the guides is a never-ending quest that keeps Ned underwater for much of the year scouring reefs, walls, sand flats, rubble fields, sea grass meadows, surge zones, algae beds, and often poking around dock pilings and occasionally beneath island out houses. Currently Ned and his wife Anna, who reside in Jacksonville, Florida, are compiling a new edition of Reef Fish Behavior, first published in 2000, and writing a column entitled Encounters for Alert Diver Magazine.
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