Marine Pictolife Guides

These little plastic reference books from French publisher Pictolife are designed to be taken with you on a dive. Although "water resistant" is printed on the cover, there is also a sticker that says "waterproof", so they can travel under water, and certainly on any boat, without risk of damage. Measuring 12 x 16cm and weighing around 240g, the first two books cover common species of the Caribbean and Mediterranean.
By using cut-out wildlife photographs and an intricate set of pictograms, Pictolife's aim
is to overcome the limitations normally imposed by language.
Turn to the common octopus, for example. You get the name in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin, but all the rest of the information is expressed in nine pictograms.
Assuming that I had studied and absorbed the detailed crib-sheet first, and that my eyesight was adequate for the size of the symbols, I could then tell that the common octopus is found in water 5-100m deep; eats fish, bivalves and shrimps; camouflages itself among corals and gorgonians; is seen frequently; is reclusive; can change its skin colour; lives to be one year old; and is subject to fishing.
That's the theory. First time out, it took me about five minutes to decipher from symbols what I could have read in words in five seconds, and that was above water.
But to be fair, I daresay I'd rapidly get better at understanding this new language if I did my homework.
Some animals just don't lend themselves to inclusion in an on-the-dive ID book, however.
The Caribbean version includes an American crocodile - I'm not sure exactly what the pictograms mean, but they didn't look encouraging. I don't think I'd be hanging round to work them out, either!
I like the look of these guides, but perhaps I'll stick to the time-honoured method of marine-life identification - snap whatever it is I can't place and, post-dive, dig out the tatty Paul Humann reference book that lurks in every dive-boat cabin!
Steve Weinman

Caribbean Marine Pictolife
ISBN: 9782952780902
Ringbound, 64pp, £19.90

Mediterranean Marine Pictolife
ISBN: 9782952780919
Ringbound, 56pp, £19.90