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FacilitiesThe Australian National Fish CollectionAbout the collection | Australian fish names | Photographic index | Publications | ANFC Home | Fish Collection Profile
Photographic Index of Australian FishesHigh-quality colour images used in the Australian Seafood Handbook form part of the largest taxonomic photographic collection of Australian fishes, known as the Photographic Index of Australian Fishes (PIAF). PIAF is a valuable research and fishing industry resource. The collection is the largest of its type in the Southern Hemisphere and consists of over 40,000 colour transparencies of more than 2,500 fish species or more than half of Australias entire fish fauna. It encompasses all of Australias commercial seafood species, and contains the only photographs in existence of many bycatch species. It contains images of species from rivers and estuaries, from near-shore to the deep ocean, from the temperate regions to the tropics, as well as from remote offshore islands and the sub-Antarctic. CSIRO marine scientists have assembled PIAF over the last 30 years as a by-product of coastal and deep ocean surveys, which are estimated to have cost more than $30 million. Specimens are usually photographed when fresh to capture the fishs natural coloration. Sometimes they are photographed after thawing from a freezer. The fish are pinned out to display their fins and photographed on a lightbox using flash lighting to obtain the most detail. PIAF will ultimately incorporate images of all Australian fish species. The images can be used for a range of commercial and applied purposes, such as product promotion through web sites, consumer education and interactive fish identification. Besides the Australian Seafood Handbook, images have been used extensively in several books, such as South East Fishery Quota Species: an identification guide, Field Guide to Trawl Fish from Temperate Waters of Australia and Continental Shelf Fishes of Northern and North-Western Australia.
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