FishBase (31 000 Species, 270 600 Common names, 46 900 Pictures, 42 400 References, 1620 Collaborators, 33 million Hits/month). FishBase is an information system with key data on the biology of all fishes. Similar to an encyclopedia, FishBase contains different things for different people. For example, fisheries managers will dive into the largest existing compilation of population dynamics data; teachers and students will find numerous graphs illustrating basic concepts of fish biology; taxonomists will enjoy access to the November 2000 update of Eschmeyers (1998) Catalog of Fishes databases; conservationists will use the lists of threatened fishes for any given country (Hilton-Taylor 2000); policymakers may be interested in a chronological, annotated list of introductions to their country; research scientists, as well as funding agencies, will find it useful to gain a quick overview of what is known about a certain species; zoologists and physiologists will have the largest existing compilations of fish morphology, metabolism, gill area, brain size, eye pigment, or swimming speed at their fingertips; ecologists will likewise use data on diet composition, trophic levels, food consumption and predators as inputs for their models; geneticists will find the largest compilation of allele frequencies; the fishing industry will find proximate analyses, as well as processing recommendations for many marine species; anglers will enjoy a listing of all game fishes occurring in a particular country (IGFA 1994); and scholars interested in local knowledge will find more than 100,000 common names of fishes together with the language/culture in which they are used and comments on their etymology.