Several years ago, it became apparent that our taxonomic guide to the early life history stages of Northeast Pacific and Bering Sea fishes published in 1989 was in need of updating. At the same time, we were completing our companion atlas on the distribution and abundance of the early life history stages of fishes collected from the same geographic area. Faced with the daunting task of yet another large volume years in the making, we met and discussed alternative options. The results of our brainstorming are this website: timely, searchable, and easily updatable.

We thank those involved in getting this project off the ground for financial support, but more importantly for their vision and willingness to embrace change and foster creativity: Jeff Napp (Recruitment Processes Program Leader), Gary Stauffer (RACE Division Director) and Russ Nelson (RACE Deputy Director). Art Kendall and Lisa Rugen (formerly AFSC) developed a rockfish database several years ago that served as a model for concept and design. This project could never have been accomplished without the labor-intensive work done by students Erin MacDonald, Margarita Reimer, and Pamela Woods, under the direction of Ted Pietsch, through several contracts with the UWFC. Erin was part of the initial project team and Pamela completed the final version; both tasks involved juggling information from many sources. We thank them for their patience and flexibility as we made one change after another. Morgan Busby assisted in data verification and worked with us to code pigmentation characters. Rachael Cartwright organized and scanned many illustrations and extensively reviewed pigmentation characters. Susan Calderon and Gary Shaw and his staff offered technical assistance. We thank the following who were asked to review a beta version of the IIS: Morgan Busby, Rachael Cartwright, Ned Laman, and Janet Duffy-Anderson (AFSC); Michael Fahay (NEFSC), Jon Hare (NEFSC), Joanne Lyczkowski-Shultz (SEFSC), William Richards (SEFSC), William Watson (SWFSC) and the staff at the Plankton Sorting and Identification Laboratory, Szczecin, Poland (ZSIOP).