From The Key West Citizen, July 13, 1930 From the northern coast of South America to the North Pole there are approximately 4,200 species of fishes, and the waters in the vicinity of Key West, with 576 species, leads any other locality in the entire stretch, according to Dr. Roberts O. Van Deusen, who is here collecting specimens for the Fairmount Park Aquarium in Philadelphia. Bermuda, with 556, and Porto Rico, with 475, come nearest to approaching the number of species in local waters, while the number in Miami waters, though only 156 miles from here is "negligible," Dr. Van Deusen says. The Florida Reef, with its countless thousands of retreats for fishes, is one of the main reasons for so many fishes of so many kinds congregating in local waters. The warmth from the Gulf Stream is another reason and unlimited food still another. Local fish are characterized as West Indian, because they are common to all the waters in the West Indies, with, of course, more species and varieties in some places than in others. For instance, while Key West waters have virtually all kinds of fish that are found in the vicinity of Porto Rico, there are many here that do not inhabit Porto Rican waters. The same thing applies to Cuba and the Bahamas.
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