Fishes of the Chicago Region

“Can you tell the difference between a highfin carpsucker and a hornyhead chub? (Hint: they’re both fish.) If not, and if you’d like to be able to, then the expansive Fishes of the Chicago Region is for you. Filled with full-color images of sturgeons, loaches, sticklebacks and smelts, the 500-page tome is a must-have field guide for fans of Second City area fish. . . . Ichthyologists have been studying Illinois fish for more than a century, and there’s a rich history of books about them. But massive ecological changes in the area—redirected waterways, the reversal of the Chicago River in the late nineteenth century—have also caused massive changes in the region’s fish populations. Fishes tells you where these creatures now live and spawn, what they eat, which ones we like to eat and so on. Many of the fish here are lovely, in their way, like the aqua and orange northern sunfish. Others are the stuff of nightmares (sea lampreys, with their circular maws ringed with rows of sharp teeth), while still others, like sturgeons, hail from the age of the dinosaurs, and look it. If many of the common names of the fish sound like hurled insults, the scientific names are even stranger, with Latin elements that roughly translate as ‘forgetting intestine,’ ‘with large buttocks’ and ‘odorous.’”

-- Robert Ito * The New York Times Book Review *
“A treasure of hardcore fish intelligence and delightful tidbits of fish history around the Chicago area. . . . It is a long labor of love. . . . The book is packed with information from scholarly research, but written to be accessible to any interested reader. Each species gets two pages, divided into description, natural history, distribution and status, and references, plus photos, mostly taken by Willink.” -- Dale Bowman * Chicago Sun-Times *

"Enjoying nature on land and in water is accessible throughout the region, and those interested in fish have a new book to peruse called Fishes of the Chicago Region: A Field Guide. . . . Readers will learn about fish with such interesting names as mudminnows, mooneyes and pirate perches and where they might find them. The book includes photos, descriptions and the status of 164 fishes that live in the region."

-- Sheryl DeVore * Natural Awakenings Chicago *
"If you’ve ever wondered what fishes are in the Chicago region, where they can be found, and what they look like, you’re in luck. The new field guide Fishes of the Chicago Region gives a complete account of nearly two hundred species of fish in northern Illinois and parts of Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan." * WBEZ's Reset *
“The authors have compiled the most complete and up-to-date guide about fishes that occur in the Chicago Region, and Fishes of the Chicago Region will be a sought-after item among biologists, teaching institutions, anglers, and naturalists not only in Chicagoland but in other areas as well. The maps are concise, the fish photos are stunning, and the natural history information is compendious. This book will be an invaluable resource for those passionate about fishes.” -- Jeremy Tiemann, associate aquatic ecologist, Prairie Research Institute’s Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
“This region has a rich diversity of aquatic habitats that formed as the Pleistocene glaciers receded to the north and left behind rivers flowing through prairies and wetlands, small lakes, and the foremost feature of the region: massive Lake Michigan—the fifth-largest lake in the world. . . . This new book, Fishes of the Chicago Region . . . provides a large amount of new information for fishes in a rapidly changing area. . . . An excellent addition.” -- Larry M. Page, curator of fishes, Florida Museum of Natural History, from the fore