Remembering
Jack Randall

October 30, 2015

June 14th, 2017

I met Jack back when I was a student in the 1980s. He encouraged me in my interests in fish taxonomy, and always had time for a chat when he called by the Australian Museum. About a third of my early papers were coauthored with Jack, including my first paper, and many of my other papers were illustrated with his photos, or relied heavily on specimens he had collected. It is hard to think of a group of Indo-Pacific fishes for which Jack hadn’t contributed significantly to our taxonomic understanding. His passing marks the end of an era.

What an extraordinary scientist! He inspired the ichthyologists throughout the world and more importantly the youngsters, who approached him for getting the fish identified. The revolution he brought in ichthyology, by incorporating high quality ‘live’ pictures, most of which are now available in FishBase, will remain for ever, as testimony to his contributions, besides hundreds of species bearing his name. Even during the later periods of his life, a picture sent to him was an excitement for him, as reflected in the immediate and prompt reply and he always directed me to contract appropriate persons, if he could not do the business. It is indeed a great loss for the ichthyologists across the world……May his soul rest in peace and ignite enthusiasm in the budding taxonomists…..

I have been thinking about Jack a lot recently as I have been referring – as I often do – to his monumental book “Reef and shore fishes of the South Pacific.” Jack’s book is one of my most treasured possessions, and every time I use it I am filled with admiration for the depth and breadth of his knowledge.
This week I wanted to identify a species of fish from Niue that was in one of my old photos – so out came Jack’s book.
Jack – you were a legend. It was an honour to know you.

Goodbye Jack — you’ll ever stay with us in memory and spirit, and tropical Indo-Pacific fish taxonomy will always be connected with your name. Hope you will have many good dives where you are now …

I never had the pleasure of knowing Jack personally but he has always been a reference as fish lover. I followed his work since much before I become a marine biologist and was always impressed on his amazing discoveries. My thoughts go to Jack’s family at this moment. Farewell Jack! You will be greatly missed.

at BPBM in Hawaii

In the 1980s, I learned from a number of his taxonomic works how important color photographs of fresh specimens and under water photographs are to fish taxonomy. Because the color when fersh cannot be keep in the specimens. I am very proud to share time with a great ichthyologist.

I passed through Honolulu and Bishop Museum in 1999 autumn, he was reminiscing the preservation of a basking shark within the museum compounds. Had the great opportunity to meet up with Jack and even had satay with him (he loved the peanut gravy), and even went to the Waikiki Aquarium and backdoor pass.
Next met him in Taipei the following year during IPFC where he was awarded the inaugural Bleeker Award for his contributions to marine fish taxonomy.
You will always be an inspiration for ichthyologists, young and old, novice and wise. RIP and dive well.

My – what has now tragically turned out – last chance to meet with Jack was in September 2019 and I am very grateful to him and especially his wife Helen to have allowed me to visit them again in their house in Kaneohe. Jack was eager as ever to talk about goatfishes. This fitted nicely to my visit at the Bishop Museum fish collection which has been becoming such a valuable resource for me after Jack, Phil Heemstra, and me had jointly decided in 2008 that I should do more research in Mullidae taxonomy. My thoughts are now especially with Helen and daughter Lori as well as with so many friends and colleagues who have the luck to share their memories about this preeminent ichthyologist.

We will really miss a great scientist in fisheries. He is an inspiration to all in the field of fisheries. Will always be remembered for his exemplary work. Adieu…

I never got the opportunity to meet Jack in person
But I had the honor and pleasure to have great exchanges by mail regarding new species that can still be collected in Mauritius and specially the new specie that come up after so many years
I still remember him telling D. Pelicier “how could we have missed that one”
FYI D.Pelicier together with Jack has been working on describing most fishes in the Indian ocean region.
A legend who will remain immortal through his work and memories of us all.
Heartfelt condolences to Jack’s family and friends
Much love from Gurroby family and our team (Mauritius)

Jack was indeed one of the greats. Back in grad school, I was on a live-aboard dive boat with Jack, Rich Pyle, Deb Gochfeld and others. We spent two weeks diving throughout Papua New Guinea. Jack was decades older than the rest of us but everyday he was the first one in the water and last one out. He was always up late at night photographing his fish specimens while the rest of us were already passed out cold. I was amazed at his energy, passion and dedication! His contributions to science are too immense to list. He will be missed.

a great naturalist, and always cooperative colleague whose knowledge of reef fishes was phenomena – I will always remember his smiles

Jack, you’ve been an inspiration to many generations of ichthyologists and your contributions to the field are invaluable. I often encountered your name on essential works before I had the honor meeting you in Hawaii and we started collaborating. You inspired me to describe my first fish and I will always be grateful for that. “The goat-fish guy”

Jack gave me my first job out of grad school at Bishop. Immediately, he & Helen enveloped me in the Randall ‘ohana. Jack drove us (3-4 technicians) to the pool every day at lunch to train for the annual rough water swim. He and Helen blessed us with Randall dinner parties, came to my wedding and 25th anniv. My heart aches at our loss as it overflows with gratitude for Jack’s mentoring, aloha, & contributions to ichthyology. And for the Randall family, please accept my deepest sympathy for your loss.

I have had the privilege of knowing Jack for over thirty years, and like many who have already shared, I considered him a mentor and friend. From our earliest correspondence in the pre-email days via airmail letters until only a few months ago when he confirmed an identification of a juvenile damselfish for me, he has shared enthusiastically with each of us.
I have many memories of Jack, and am probably not the only one who can say that the deepest dive that they have ever done was with Jack! In my case we were in the Straits of Hormuz trying to locate likely habitat for possible deepwater Anthias. We followed an amazingly steep sandy slope near a small rock island confident that at the bottom of the incline we would find rocky habitat. At 100 feet the water became remarkably clear and when we stopped at 140 feet we could see the slope continuing far below with no sign of the habitat we were looking for. We headed for the surface after collecting a few small fishes on our way.
Although some of Jack’s early career were spent in the Caribbean, it was the Indo-Pacific where this ichthyological Adam has left his mark. Jack, however, not only named a myriad of fishes but did the hard work involved to research and confirm those new species, most often in collaboration with one of us now remembering him. There are few places in the Indo-Pacific where one could dive or snorkel and not be able to spot a fish with his name attached to it. I am currently sequestered on the shores of the Red Sea and am blessed to be able to snorkel regularly despite country-wide lockdowns. After returning from my snorkel today I realized that I had observed no fewer than six species which had Jack’s name attached to them.
I extend my condolences to Helen and family. He was one a kind and his legacy will continue for not only to future generations of the Randall family but also to future generations of ichthyologists and marine scientists. O Captain! my Captain! rest in peace – the era has ended.

I first met Jack in 1983 at the McAllen Public Library, in McAllen, Texas, through his published works. On Saturdays, my mom would drop me off at the library on her way to work and pick me up when she was done. I spent that time immersed in Red Sea Reef Fishes, Caribbean Reef Fishes, Underwater Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes and Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. At the time I was under age and wasn’t allowed to check out books from that section of library…proof Jack was a pioneer on many levels…we could argue Jack pioneered “fishporn” :). In 1984 I wrote him at Bishop Museum – he wrote me back. Jack was a scientist in the truest sense and a passionate one. Ever willing and able to engage in a discussion from reef ecology, fish taxonomy or geographic distribution with the upmost ease and confidence that only first hand experience could tell. Perhaps what I remember most, was Jack’s openness and willingness to welcome me into his home on any visit to Oahu. Helen would meet me at the door and Jack would be waiting in the living room…he indulged and helped ignite a passion that has been with me for 40 years. I will miss his emails at Christmastime, during any tennis grand slam (Jack cheering for my cheering of Nadal) and the regular lot of jokes we would forward. My condolences to Helen and Jack’s children at this time and my sincere appreciation for sharing a little of him with me. Mahalo.

I first met Jack in the early 80s as a young graduate student. He took an interest in my work with gobies and started sending me samples and photos for identification and for use in published descriptions. Jack was so approachable, welcoming and supportive- he was a great assist to many new to the world of ichthyology and systematics. This is as great a legacy as his many publications. My condolences to you, his family, and hope it provides some comfort knowing his memory will be cherished by many.

I first met Jack while interviewing for a curatorial assistant position at the Bishop Museum in 1978. A week later we were either swimming laps or playing tennis during our lunch breaks. During my employment at the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, Jack made several visits where we collected fishes from the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. We spent evenings at sea sharing homemade wine and limericks. Upon returning to Hawaii, we continued to socialize and engage in long discussions ranging from environmental issues to politics. Jack was a father figure, mentor, and most importantly, a cherished friend who made a positive impact on my life.

Jack was a great colleague and friend who helped me early in my career several years before we actually met. Over the years we corresponded, exchanged specimens, and he helped me immeasurably. He will be missed. Sympathy to his family at this time of sadness.

I first met Jack in the late 1970’s and he was always supportive of my taxonomic research. Being with Jack was like being with a best friend. I will always cherish my memories of the time I spent with Jack and Helen. You will be missed, but will never be forgotten.

I first met Jack in 2005 when I joined the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. To say I was awe struck is an understatement. I was fortunate to be able to get to know him as a person and not just the ichthyological guru that he was. His encyclopedic knowledge of fish taxonomy was a gift that benefited the world. He will be sorely missed by all.

On behalf of the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences (AUAS), I would like to express our profound sorrow at the passing of John E. Randall, PhD. John was an Academy Fellow who received the prestigious NOGI Award for Science in 2000. His contributions to the body of knowledge in marine science improved our understanding of and appreciation for global coral reef communities. The Academy and its Fellows mourn the loss of such a giant in our community and we will always remember him, not only for his contributions to science, but for his contributions to our lives. We are all better for having known him.

Most people are content to do just one thing on a dive. Not Jack Randall. Here he is at Enewetak Atoll in 1983 fully armed with camera, two kinds of spears and probably a squeeze bottle of quinaldine tucked into his BC. I remember Dr. Albert Banner at the University of Hawaii, introducing Jack as a guest lecturer, saying that “Jack was out to get a picture of every fish in the ocean…and I don’t mean every different KIND of fish.”

Dr. Randall..rest in peace..His passion for ichthyology has inspired me a lot. Though I have not met him his mails and copies of reprints which he sent me during my thesis period and during the publication of various manuscripts have helped me grow. Your books and works are surely going to inspire many a budding child to follow your path. I hope your family has the strength to bear the loss.

Jack was always very kind and generous to me. I remember I was completely unknown to him when I was just starting a post-doc in Panamá in 1970. It would be very useful for me to know the ecological role of Caribbean reef fishes, so I wrote and requested a copy of his 182-page booklet he wrote in 1967 on food habits of Caribbean reef fishes. He sent it to me promptly and I have always felt humbled by his repeated generosity and how quickly he would provide advice or answers when I never really was able to give anything in return. We dived the whole east coast of Taiwan in 1978. He was always in good humor and fun to be with. There were memorable events that were unintended humor. He bought a shark at the fish market to photograph and temporarily stored it in the bathtub of his hotel room. It was a bit longer than the tub and freaked out the maid who went in to clean. He rigged a setup for photography by moving furniture into the hallway. An audience of Taiwanese children were watching as his lighting blew a hotel fuse and it was suddenly dark. I have never seen him in any but a pleasant or humorous mood.

I’m sharing the acknowledgement section of the first international paper I wrote. I was an undergrad with zero publications when I first started corresponding with Jack in the mid-90s. He always answered my questions with great attention, and we exchanged many letters back then. The first time I met him was at the ASIH conference in New Orleans in 1996 and he thoroughly reviewed my first manuscript, the description of Haemulon squamipinna, which ended up being published in Copeia. I can count with the fingers in one hand how many other senior scientists I know that would do that for an undergrad student. Jack is literally the first person I thanked in the first paper I wrote! He will always be an example!

Acknowledgements

What I remember most about Jack was how generous he was with both his time and knowledge. Even in the days before email, he would always respond promptly to my fish queries with detailed letters and slide transparencies. He made me feel special, but I’m sure he did this with everyone.

I am afraid that I only knew of Jack through his impact on the field of ichthyology. In 2009, I received his “Reef and Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands” for Christmas. A decade later, it is hard to find a paper on fish taxonomy that he has not contributed to. His meticulous descriptions will continue to serve as the cornerstone of ichthyology.

I am very sorry because of the death of Jack Randall, one of the greatest ichthyologists I had the honour to meet.. Already long before he visited the Museum of Natural History of Berlin, Germany, he generously provided the Fish department of that museum with his valueable scintific publications, which are highlights of the library of that department.
On September 26 and 27 in 1985, long time before the infamous “Berlin Wall” was broken down, he visited us in the former East-Berlin for two short but very busy days. Powerful and comradely, only with very short breaks, he was looking up to the late evening for type specimens most of Serranids.
I will never forget his impressive personality.
Hans-Joachim Paepke,
(already for 20 years retired)

I’ve had the privilege of corresponding with Jack over the years, though sadly I never had a chance to meet the man. Opening my inbox to see an email from him was a bit like seeing a message sent from Cuvier or Bleeker or Jordan. Jack was a living vestige of those great naturalists, but one kind enough to send me pdfs and answer my esoteric taxonomic questions.

Mahalo.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him, however, learned from him in 1981 when I took an Ichthyology class a the Dept of Marine Science of the Unv. of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus. He worked at the Dept in the 60 and to this day the Dept considered him a legend and founding father. His book Caribbean Reef Fishes is the go to reference for fish identification in Puerto Rico.

I made friends with Jack many years ago when I went diving off Roatan Island (Honduras),and photographed a wrasse I could not identify. I had
his book CARIBBEAN REEF FISHES (I guess the first edition,I have 3 editions) and knew almost ALL the fishes! I wrote to him, and sent him a slide of the mystery fish. We became instant friends. At that time there was no email so he would answer in typed letters. We never lost contact! He was my MAIN inspiration as I loved too, identifying the fishes I saw,and photographed. At that time I had HIS BOOK, Fishes of the Bahamas,and adjacent tropical waters(Bohlke and Chaplin),and Los Peces Marinos de Venezuela (Fernando Cervigon). I just got out Cervigon’s two books, and they both say in Spanish,”Decisive was in every moment the help,and collaboration presented by Dr. John Randall,director of the Institute of Marine Biology of the University of Puerto Rico.” It was a WONDERFUL SURPRISE that Helen ,and Jack
came to New Orleans ,and my wife and I were able to MEET THEM!!!
Instead of us inviting them to dinner he INSISTED, AND INVITED US!!!
I always admired HIS FRIENDLINESS, AND HUMBLENESS! Having achieved SO MUCH, HE WAS NOT ARROGANT OR ABOVE YOU!!! That made me LOVE HIM!!! After dinner we invited them to our house, and saw of course, marine slides! He then gave us as a gift, his third Edition of CARIBBEAN REEF FISHES( I had bought the two editions before)! I have the book in front of me and when you open it,it says “To Richard & Mari with best wishes & aloha Jack”. I was HONORED when he chose
a nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) I had photographed off Mona Island (Puerto Rico) in the 1970’s for his (I think) Memoirs. I knew something was wrong when he didn’t answer my last email. Think he
had emailed me he had been in the hospital for pneumonia and also had a kidney infection. He will live I think in the HEARTS OF THE MANY THAT LOVE HIM!!! That he be with GOD,forever! AMEN!
P.S. My LOVE to ALL THE FAMILY. Glad I MET YOU HELEN! It was
an HONOR!!! Thank you very much for the Season’s Greetings that I
imagine YOU wrote and I got thru the years. WHAT A WONDERFUL
LIFE JACK HAD OF ACHIEVEMENTS,ADVENTURE,DISCOVERY, AND
ABOVE ALL,LOVE!!! TO ME HE LIVED LIFE TO THE FULLEST!!! THAT
IS A WONDERFUL BLESSING VERY FEW HAVE DONE!!! SO BE HAPPY,
AND REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES!!!

I first met Jack while a graduate student at the Institute of Marine Science, Miami in the 1960s while he worked Caribbean Reef Fishes. He was popular among the graduate students for his wide range of marine interests. Between 1976 and 2011 we authored 11 papers describing various apogonids, a tiny fraction of fishes Jack described. He was an early friend and we corresponded over the years concerning apogonids. I looked forward to playing tennis with Jack while at some early Ichs & Herps meetings, an energetic departure at the time.

Aloha, Jack

Just met Jack quickly at the Indo-Pacific Fish Conference in Durban in 2001. Some of us went for diving during the social event day. We formed two groups, led by two local dive masters: Jack, with all his underwater photography material (was it digital? 🙂 ); and the rest of us! 8-10! which with the strong current went funny … It showed first how much Jack was dedicated to picturing coral reef fishes under and out of water in any circumstances, his life underlying pioneering and exploring activity, and how much respect he was already receiving from the ichthyological community. With Jack, disappears a legendary monument of the coral reef fish biodiversity, but no doubt that the shoulders of this giant are the foundations of many of our current works, and will remain indefinitely so. Condolences to his family and close friends.

I first met Jack when I saw a talk he gave at HIMB in 2000. His shark stories were incredible and he could have filled up books based on his observations. I am not a fish taxonomist but have read and cited many of his papers on sharks. A true Irreplaceable legend in the field

I feel privileged to have imposed myself at Sandy’s grandpa’s home to meet him. I knew he was extraordinary in his field and what I love as well… Fish!
But these tributes from his colleagues make me realize that I was one of many many who wanted his company, advice and just to be around his amazing energy.
How wonderful to leave what he has to this world. I am overwhelmed!!
And I am honored to have met John Randall. Thank you ????????

My Dad, Dean Edgerton, referred to Jack as his best friend. They met in College and my Dad was so fortunate to go on so many of Jack’s adventures over the years. He visited he and Helen regularly from California for many years. I was fortunate to go on a trip with him to Hawaii and stay in their home and see his work at the Bishop museum. Jack was obviously an amazing man and we were so lucky to have him in our lives.

I will miss Jack as a dive buddy, mentor and friend. I started diving with Jack when I was a freshman at Univ Hi in 1972. On diving expeditions, he would always have great jokes tell and he did a wonderful ‘Donald Duck’ impression. These photos from July 1999 after the FAO conference hosted by Kent Carpenter in Belize, we spent a few weeks diving off my boat at Glovers Atoll studying goby-shrimp symbiosis.

The world is down one amazing Ichthyologist. In my early days on Maui I spent a few years driving a 6 pack dive boat for Mike Severns Diving. Jack Randall joined us on several occasions. It was an exciting day filled with talk of fish. Jack was humble and brilliant with an encyclopedic mind for his friends with fins, many of whom are named after him.

When I moved to Maui in 1996 I was eager to learn as much about the fish and critters that I would see while diving as I could. I had mastered many of the Caribbean marine life with almost as much prowess as my mom, an avid bird watcher had mastered the avian world of the North East. One of the first books that I purchased and which is well worn now is my copy of Shore Fishes of Hawaii. I and many of my dive buddies owe a heartfelt thank you for this book which endured as a prime resource. Years later when I observed a very unique fish that seemed to be an odd adaptation of a Moorish Idol I knew I had to describe it to an expert. Somehow with the aid of the Internet I found a way to reach out to Jack. I either left him a voice message or sent an email, I can’t recall. I really didn’t think he would have time or interest in calling back. I was merely a SCUBA Instructor and dive shop manager not a scholar, not a colleague. But I was very wrong. I received a call back from the most humble and down to earth man. He immediately put me at ease and we had the best talk. I felt like I had known him for years. He listened to my description he asked about the circumstances of the dive- where were we, what time of day, what was the underwater terrain, what other marine life was present. After stumbling over key points of my description as I did not always use the correct word for various parts of the fish’s anatomy, Jack explained that I had seen a juvenile recruit in its translucent stage. He made me feel as though this was as exciting to him as it was to me. He told tales of similar discoveries and thanked me for sharing my sighting. He reminded me of my most favorite college professor and friend. I wished I had known him when I was choosing a career. I will always appreciate his body of work but more so I will remember him as accessible, humble, and a natural at “talk story “

When we arrived at Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama in 1969, my wife and colleague Nancy and I were unfamiliar with Caribbean reef fishes. Jack’s eponymous book and its companion Food Habits of Reef Fishes of the West Indies shortly became our indispensable companions as we began a two-year project on the behavioral ecology of the striped parrotfish (then, Scarus croicensis). We heard stories about him and mused about meeting Jack long before it happened at my first job as marine biologist at the new West Indies Laboratory of Fairleigh Dickinson University on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Jack had a huge profile from his early work in Puerto Rico and the V.I. and we finally lured him to come over from Hawaii and have a look around. I was prepared to greet the kind academic striver which we were accustomed to hosting, but Jack was little of this. Yes, he was energetic, demanding and constantly in motion, but always friendly, full of good cheer and eager to show you something new in the field. I recall our divemaster came to me looking concerned and explained that Jack, over his awestruck protest, had just loaded four scuba tanks into a whaler and took off alone. Suffice to say that we finally managed to get him to follow a few custom-designed rules. After sundowners, Jack would often work in the Lab, revealing to anyone interested his ancient camera and his technique of preparing fish for photographic illustration. Jack came to WIL several more times for diving projects and workshops where he usually took a seat in the back and quietly wrote a draft manuscript on a legal pad. The last time I saw him was at the great 2016 International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu. I was completely surprised by my tears at Peter Sale’s emotional introduction of Jack’s plenary address and it continued as Jack was speaking. Many of us knew that this would be the last time we would see him, and that we would lose all but the memories of someone important in our lives and careers. In that vein, I hope that someone will lead a community effort to support the publication of Jack’s autobiography, Fish ‘n Ships, which is close to final draft form.

Hail and farewell, old friend and mentor.

Thank you all for the comfort and joy that reading these personal, heartfelt and humorous messages brings.

What a treasure he was! Jack flew over to Maui many times during the 80s and 90s to dive with us and to photograph fishes for his books and papers. He loved Molokini because he felt he could approach fish there more closely because it was a marine reserve. After a full day of diving he would immediately shower and leave to go play some tennis with friends before coming back to our house for dinner and slide shows of his fish – and having ice cream for dessert (which he claimed with a wink he was not allowed to have at home ☺). At the time I knew he was a major fish scientist and author, but as the years went on I realized that he was a LEGEND and what an honor it was to have spent all that lovely time with him and to have had his gentle guidance with our own projects and books. I was just a divemaster with an interest in fish, but the kind way he spoke to and corresponded with me made me feel like a colleague! Then about seven years ago he gave me one of my two most memorable compliments (the other from my mother). He had asked me to capture a fish that we all thought was a new species. So I attached a scoop net to the end of a telescoping boat hook and, with the help of two friends herding and 45 minutes of intensive swimming, we caught it. I had had NO idea how hard it was to catch a fish! I couldn’t wait to call him and tell him that we had caught one, and when I did he laughed and said “You’re amazing!!” (I knew he, of all people, knew how hard fish were to catch!). I was glowing inside and still do now when I think of how he made me feel in that moment. I know he must have made almost everyone he met feel special. One of the many legacies he leaves.

I first met Jack in 1988 when I was being interviewed for the position as Malacologist at the Bishop Museum, which I took up in early 1990. I got the impression that he supported my application and once I had moved to Hawaii I got to know him better, over the 11 years I spent at the Bishop Museum. I recall back in 1991, when my parents were visiting from England and I was living in Kaneohe, that my Dad, Jack, Allen Allison and I would play tennis at the courts in Kaneohe. My Dad and Jack were born 3 or 4 months apart in 1924, my Dad in February and Jack in May. They got on well. So they both made it to 95, not quite 96. Congratulations, Jack, on an amazing and productive life. You were indeed an ichthyological legend!

I had limited opportunity to work with Jack on fishes, but I am truly impressed with his productivity and creativity. He was a co-author on a paper which sunk a species named for him, Acanthurus randalli Briggs and Caldwell, 1957. He was most agreeable in the publication. May Jack swim in peaceful waters

Photo of the dinners at night at Mseni Lodge, with Jack regaling us with endless stories.

I did my Ph.D. several years ago at the Department of Marine Sciences at Isla Magueyes, University of Puerto Rico. Jack worked there for several years, years before I became a student. I remember handling some of the fish he had collected at our mini museum during the Ichthyology course. For sure dived and snorkeled in the same reefs too. I do not remember where I bought my copy of Caribbean Reef Fishes 2nd Ed., but still has it’s $29.99 sticker. I remember vividly the different emotions of having this book in my hands. He introduced me to a more detailed view of this new fascinating world. Right now, I am holding in my hands the same book, but having totally different emotions, sorrow, respect, and above all gratitude! Rest in Peace John E. Randall, and really thanks!!!
José Guillermo

I am very sorry to hear of Jack’s passing. No one can dispute that he lived a full life. Following Brian Bowen’s excellent suggestion when I first joined the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in 2009, I had the opportunity to work with Jack on several fishy revision projects. Apparently, someone familiar with the ins and outs of genetics was in high demand.

His passion for ichthyology was unparalleled. He fast tracked my development in this field. He started me on my journey with the Bishop Museum and their fish collections, which Arnold and Lori kindly helped with along the way. I also looked forward to visiting his home and listening to his amazing collection of stories from diving trips in the “good old days”. The hundreds of active specimen jars in the house, and refrigerators filled with photo slides versus food, point toward a man on a mission. He was an amazing resource who took the time to carefully answer each and every one of my e-mails, sometimes in mere minutes!

Jack was highly supportive of my collection initiatives in the Indo-West Pacific even after I left HIMB, often slipping me the names of several fish to be on the lookout for in the field. Although to be fair, if Jack did not get it on his litany of dives over the years, it was probably an extremely elusive fish.

Jack supported my current position at the Australian Museum, and I am eternally grateful for that. I extend my condolences to Helen, Lori, and their entire extended family.

Decades ago, before I knew Jack well, I noticed a fish swimming upside down under a flat ceiling of rock on a shaded sheer wall at Molokini. It was 180ft. down to this fish’s inverted world and the unobstructed drop beneath it was another 90ft. to the base of the island. I sent Jack a photo of the fish for an identification he was always happy to supply. The fish was Holanthias fuscipennis then known from about 400ft.

Perhaps a week later Jack arrived on Maui and we went to photograph this rare and beautiful fish. When we arrived on a ledge just above the fish at 170ft., I stayed and Jack swam over the ledge then beneath the ceiling out of sight followed by a chest thumping shock wave. When he came back over the ledge a minute later he had a wise almost wry smile in his eyes and a dead strobe in an imploded housing. I saw that smile in his eyes many times and will never forget it.

Jack flew to Maui regularly in those days, often to photograph a single fish. His interest inspired people to pay more attention and he would often reward those lucky enough to find a new species by naming it for them.

Jack was never certified to my knowledge so to stay honest he never signed a waiver on our boat demanding he be certified to dive. He was our proud exception and he always got back on the boat in the same condition he got off, often contradicting his computer and always with that smile.

I will be forever grateful for Jack’s influence and guidance. I am so proud to have had the honor of knowing and working with Jack and to say he was an inspiration would be an understatement. Jack’s gone now, but his spirit will live on through the sheer immensity and quality of his accomplishments. So many great memories of the many trips we did together and those days as Jack’s grad student apprentice at the Bishop Museum. Connie and I send our best wishes and sincere condolences to Helen, Lori, and Rod, and their extended families.

When I was a graduate student in 1978, I had a great opportunity to publish a joint paper with Jack on the triggerfish genus Xanthichthys in the Bulletin of Marine Science. During this joint project, I was greatly impressed by his fast correspondence. Since then, Jack was always kind enough to me, providing me with his great knowledge about shallow-water tetraodontiforms. I will never forget you, Jack.

My first interaction with Jack was back in 1962 when I was starting my dissertation work and was considering revising the holocentrid genus Myripristis. Upon discovering that I was considering this group for a dissertation topic, Jack abandoned his plans to begin a revision, sent me many of his colored slides from his personal collection, collected specimens of Myriprists, and provided his help and knowledge. This was so typical of Jack, always ready to help a student.

It was not until 1987 when I moved to the University of Hawai`i that my close association with Jack developed. He helped me learn the Hawaiian fishes and together we worked on the fishes of Kane`ohe Bay, with a focus on gobies. In 1999 we started our survey work on the fishes of Fiji, and for the next four years I had the privilege of working with Jack in the field. While diving I remember Jack with his camera gear stationed underwater next to our collecting area waiting for me to bring him specimens to photograph, and sometimes feeling a tap on my shoulder asking if I had a specimen for him.

Jack was a special person! Unlike so many people who are great in their field, Jack was humble, friendly and always helpful to others. I will greatly miss his friendship and counsel. Attached is a photo of my last visit with him in Hawai`i in 2018.

I will forever be grateful for Dr. Randall’s unselfish generosity for penning the foreword for my recently published picture book. I was incredibly humbled when he replied to my first email and kept up a conversation with me and answering all my questions about the goby fish and the pistol shrimp symbiotic relationship. He didn’t know who I was, he knew he would never meet me in person, and yet he so graciously contributed his voice to my book. Thank you again Dr. Randall! http://bluewhalepress.com/index.html#randall

Jack Randall is one of the titans that inspired many of us to pursue marine science. I have heard the adventurous stories of Jack retold by many different people and in all cases they were entertaining. He was real easy to approach and was willing to invest his time to help no matter how simple the inquiry. I once called him to talk about a manini spawning event I witness knowing that he did his dissertation work on the fish that even included some early tagging efforts. I was surprised that although he had seen spawning of the fish elsewhere in the Pacific he had not encountered here in Hawaii. He was quick to point out that even though you can spend much of your time in the water no one see everything – although I would say he came pretty close.

Per Rich’s suggestion, I’d like to submit an addendum to my earlier post with a few memorable stories. 1). Jack was an avid tennis player; and extremely competitive. In 1978, the first time I played against him, I had an easy lead. I decided to ease up a bit to not embarrass the “older man” and my boss. He proceeded to win the next six straight games. I learned a valuable lesson about his determination that day. 2). In 1984, Jack was invited to collect fishes with me in Saudi Arabia. Helen wrote and asked to be sure I watched out for him. On his 60th birthday, while swimming in the University pool, Jack decided he wanted to test the 9 meter high diving board. I watched Jack walk up to the tip of the board, then jump up and down, testing the bounce. I was extremely nervous just thinking of my promise to Helen, as Jack proceeded to run and execute an unbelievable “back layout one and a half, with a full twist”. I nearly passed out watching and had no idea he was an accomplished diver while attending college at UCLA back in the early 1940s. 3). Later in 2000, Jack was already suffering from peripheral nephropathy, to a degree where it was difficult for him to walk. He visited me on Maui and despite his condition, we both wanted to go diving. I dropped him off at a state park reserve, carried his gear to the shoreline, and helped him with his tank. He struggled into the water then immediately transformed into a fish – he had no physical limitations once in the ocean; it was my last and most memorable dive with him. In closing I’d like to reflect back to 1982, when Jack published his book, “Red Sea Reef Fishes”, along with a smaller waterproof version entitled “The Diver’s Guide to Red Sea Reef Fishes”. For those of you that may have that publication, note the picture of Jack on the back cover: he is surfacing from a photographic dive with his decompression gauge clearly displaying “in the red”. The caption on the cover reads, “Rinse in fresh water and towel dry after use. Store away from sunlight”. A perfect depiction summarizing Jack as I knew and loved him.

When I met Jack he was already at the top of Mt. Olympus in the world of ichthyology, and I was just a schmuck with a camera looking for some help identifying the fish in my photos. He had probably thousands of pickled specimens on his shelves waiting for his attention, and hundreds of papers to write, yet he always took time to look at my photos, give them his best shot at identification, and usually also sent along .pdfs of papers on the fish family in question, most of them authored by him. There are few people who rise to such a level of accomplishment and high regard in their field, and fewer yet who do so while always exhibiting generosity and good humor to others. He was a great scientist and an extraordinary human being.

It is a good memory to the description of new species.
Also, I will never forget the day when I visited your home.

We pray for the souls.

I want to thank the man who has done so much for tropical biodiversity….also in the Red Sea and Arabian/Persian Gulf: he has inspired dozens of divers to go out and photograph fishes, to become naturalists….. I never met him, but everyone I met who know him, talked about his generosity…. In Kuwait were I worked a few years ago, he contributed photos to a fantastic little reef coral and fish book (published 1997) – a keystone for reef biodiversity conservation there. May other scientists emulate such a scholar and gentleman.

I’ve had the honor of collaborating with Jack years ago in the description of a new fish species Parapercis banoni Randall & Yamakawa, 2006. Thank you very much, we follow and will follow your love of fish taxonomy

A legend in Ichthyology. How many fish do you have seen in your life, Jack? Please keep them with you. I have meet you many times at the MNHN fish collection with your colleague and friend ML Bauchot. You are for me the best American specialist of coral reef fish. Respect.

The world lost the greatest ichthyologist. Jack was my teacher. I am familiar with him since 1997 and I have more than 3000 messages between us, he was very communicable and never had errors in text. He teached me my English, I followed him a technique of photography of fresh fishes and underwater photography, collection of fishes with different methods.
I do not have scientific education but Jack allowed me to raise my enthusiasm to level of ichthyologist. We together improved knowledge on Red Sea fishes, a recent chapter about Red Sea endemic fishes our latest paper. Unfortunately our monograph “Coastal fishes of the Red Sea” almost ready but still not published, and I will add my effort to piblish it in memory to Jack.
Jack showed me his Memoirs about his amazing life. I have all Christmas Letters which he sent me every year. I greatly appreciate how Helen supported him all life, he spent a lot of time in field. I never understand how Jack can find time for family, examination of fishes and numerous publications.
I and my family never forget him. Thank you Jack!

The preceding tributes embody the man, the scientist, the mentor, the adventurer and friend to us all. Ichthyology has lost one of its greatest contributors – this truly is the end of a ‘Jack era’! Never afraid to ask a favour, he was never one the decline reciprocation. I personally will miss the many pleasant fishy interactions (particularly those involving sharks and rays) over the decades, as well as some gritty battles on the tennis court at early Indo-Pacific Fish Conferences! Jayne and I offer our condolences to Helen, Lori, Rod and their families.

Pic in Thai restaurant

There are many people that I appreciate in this world for their knowledge, hard work and love for the ocean. Some of which I am blessed to know. Some of them I even worked with. Others I had the pleasure to write and communicate with them many times from a distance. Unfortunately I didn’t have the pleasure to meet Dr. Randal in person. I do feel I know him well through his extensive and complete works. He is part of the family that truly dedicated their lives to the passion they were born with. There is a strong connection to all of the fish lovers through his works. Every time we grab a book to identify any fish we feel that strong connection. The essence of a true ichthyologist’s soul. You need to have it in your soul to be part of this family. A great example of seriousness and dedication. Thanks Dr. Randal for all you did, and for being one of us! Aloha!

Not only “Science ” has lost one of his great ichthyologists, but we all have lost a wonderful person, a true friend and a unique teacher.
I had the honor and the pleasure to meet Jack about half a century ago, Jack was my advisor for the PhD thesis, we conducted joint research and published some works together. Jack kindly accepted to give an MSc course for Israeli students and finally we organized a workshop on Red Sea Deep-Sea Fishes in Eilat (ISRAEL).
This “Encyclopedia of Fish” was not only the ultimate answer to our questions but we all remember how pleasant was the time spent around the camp fire, a beer in the hands.
Dear Helen, Jack surely grave his name in Science for eternity, but he will be always present in our heart.
Jack, already miss you! RIP

It’s really sad to hear this message, even I was an undergraduate student during his visit to IPFC, Taiwan. I learn a lot from Jack and be honer to help his research in the past.
Keep working fish taxonomy and Systematics, maybe the good way to memorize Jack.

Very sad news surfaced about the passing of great researcher Dr. Randall who has hugely contrubuted in the filed of fish biology and fisheries, his great contribution will always remind us about him. I did not meet him but contacted him for sometime when I need his expert opinion. Great human great scietist is not with us but his contribution will always be with us.

Dear Lori
I know Jack Randall from 1987 after joining my career in Zoological Survey of India, Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he was a mentor to me for more than three decades for the identification of reef fish and encouraged me in fish taxonomy which were poorly known from these Islands through exchanging many letters and emails, the last mail was on 10 April, 2020. His age in 2016 made him unable to travel internationally, so it was a happy coincidence that he received the award the year ICRS had come to Hawaii in his home town, which gave me the opportunity to meet him personally for the first time on the dais and could present my book on Reef fishes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, it was a breathtaking moment to watch the icon honored with Darwin Medal on 20th June followed by his valuable lecture on “Fish Taxonomy, Bio-geography and Evolution: A Tortuous Pathway”. I am fortunate to have several of his commitment books in my shelf, Jack introduced good number of his friends and students to me. We can all look forward to the publication of his Fish ‘n Ships, touching all aspects of his life journey. I will be forever grateful for Jack’s generosity for writing the foreword for upcoming book on “Fishes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands”. Amazing man, it was an honour to know and see him. My prayers are with his family and accept my deepest and heartfelt condolences.

Jack passed away, but he was already in the Pantheon …. of the ichthyologists! Indeed, according to a recent compilation named (cf CAS website), he was the only actual ichthyologist classified in the top ten, in third row, among the Günther, Bleeker, Boulenger, Jordan, Valenciennes, Gilbert, Regan, Steindachner and Fowler! Since 1955, Jack described 834 species with a very high validity rate or more than 96%. From the world beyond, Jack will remain a light for us.
Bernard SERET

A thought moved from French divers passionate about underwater biology who work on the DORIS site.
The works of Jack Randall remain an incredible source of documentation and references for us, simple amateurs who try to share and translate for the community of divers what men like him have built during a busy life. Happy travels with flying fish, Dr. Randall and thanks for all!

I met Jack as a high school student. I may have not left any impression on Jack, but he did for me. He told me to chase my dreams. Fast forward, he was the reason why I had 50 aquaria in my parents’ basement as a high school student; he’s the reason why I was able to pay for my first year of college (by breeding fish); he’s the reason why I used aquaria in all of my years of teaching high school biology and environmental science; and he’s the reason why I continue to be a recreational diver, aquarist, and educational outreach coordinator at NOAA. Humbled and grateful to have met this man.

Jack was truly a legend, both as a scientist and as a human. I met him as a grad student at UH in the 80s-90s. Even though he was based at the Bishop Museum, he often joined the Zoology fish gang to celebrate defenses, our rare off-island visitors or to share slides and stories from someone’s adventures. Greta beat me to my most vivid memory of Jack – our liveaboard trip with Jack, Rich and others on the Telita in Milne Bay, PNG. Aside from a terrifying moment trying to save Rich’s life, my most lasting memory of that trip is how Jack would be on his 5th+ dive of the day by the time we struggled, exhausted, into our wetsuits for our 3rd or 4th. At 70+, he did 5-6 dives every day and then stayed up half the night mounting and photographing his haul, then started over again at dawn – for 2 weeks straight. As mere mortals, we youngsters just couldn’t keep up! It’s been many years since I last saw Jack, but now that a lot of my work is in the Caribbean (and on sponges), I frequently cite his 1968 paper on sponge-feeding fishes of the West Indies. His many books still adorn my shelves, and are still opened lovingly now and then. Jack lived a long and remarkable life, and we’ve certainly lost one of the wonders of the world. I grieve for both those closest to him and for those who never had the opportunity to experience him first-hand.

Sad to read that Jack went on his last and final dive. During the 1980s Jack visited us regularly in Jeddah/ Saudi Arabia to collect material for his Red Sea Reef Fishes publications. One time Jack came into my dive shop with a dead 6 feet long shark in the boot of his car. This fish looked like a new specie to him and he wanted the animal to be send to a colleague of his in NewSeeland. I imagined the uproar with the custom officials at Jeddah Airport, to forward an un-packed dead fish to somewhere. Luckily our friend Jan Copeland was willing to deal with such a challenge. He came with his old Toyota Jeep and the entourage went to Jeddah airport. Surprisingly all worked out welll and the shark went off to NewSeeland. I still wonder in what a condition and what circumstances the fish, by than most probably pungent-smelling, would have looked on arrival.
Dear Jack, it was an honour to know you, all the best on your final journey!

I first came across Jack Randall’s name as the author of two illustrated books, one on the fishes of the Red Sea and another one on those of Oman. They became my “bibles“ when entering ichthology as the field of my profession. Both works were seminal enough to make him a champion of the ichthyology of the Arabian region. Being focused on the region it took a while for me to note that he’d authored similarily seminal works from many different parts of the world, making him a global not a regional champion. How could a single man possibly achieve that? Soon, I got the chance to join a dinner with him during his visit to the fish section at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. It was telling, literally. The man could talk “fish“ the whole evening.
We were only occasionally in touch over the years until more recently when, by chance, I got to ask him about a case of converging body colouration in two species from different families which tend to school together. It turned out that he’d thought about it already in the 1970ies. A bit later he surprisingly named a fish after me; not sure I deserve it yet still feel utterly honoured.
I had one single dive with him, and Phil Heemstra who also sadly passed away too soon, during the IPFC 2001 in Durban, South Africa. Jack was already limping and had a bit of hard work carrying his tank. Yet, once in the water he became a fish. May his soul rest in peace, .. or in a fish, if he loved that.

I became aware of Dr. Randall’s depth of work as I cited many of papers in my undergraduate ichthyology class at the University of Hawaii at Hilo (2014). While field sampling, we would refer to his books as our Bible. I even kept his Shore Fishes book next to my bed! In 2017, I had the privilege of sampling Easter Island with my current graduate advisor, Luiz Rocha. We would be doing deep dives and hoped to find many new species. I enthusiastically examined my collections from the first few dives to discover many of them had already been described by Dr. Randall. At that moment, at this isolated Pacific Island, I realized the breadth of his research.

The year before, I attended his lifetime achievement ceremony at the 2016 ICRS conference and will never forget the passion and humility he spoke with. While I never had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Randall, his work inspired me and countless ichthyologists. My sincerest condolences go out to his family and my colleagues that have lost their friend and mentor. I have no doubt that Dr. Randall’s legacy will continue to inspire ichthyologists for generations to come. Now it’s up to us to carry on the very bright torch he leaves us.

When my children were learning to dive Jack’s Caribbean Reaf Fishes was the family bible. Later, when they met the great man they were amazed to learn that he knew more limericks than their dad.

Photo captions:
Jack as seen by a cartoonist on a dive boat.
Jack photographing a new species.

Jack following his plenary address at the 2016 International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu

The first time I met him in 1987, I was a grad student visiting the fish collection of the Smithsonian at the same time he was working his way through the bottles of unidentified fishes from the same family (Holocentridae) that I was working on during my visit. We talked a bit about the group as he was picking up jars and looking in at the specimens. At least 3 times in one afternoon he picked up a jar, and without opening it up to look at the specimen any closer, he said, “Oh, that one’s a new species!” Truly remarkable to watch this guy work. He was kind enough to a grad student like me to send a number of his underwater photos so that I could use them for my dissertation proposal. That’s the kind of guy he was. RIP Jack.

Our late son, Darrell Takaoka, was touched by Dr. John Randall’s extra ordinary abilities. The Bishop Museum was to Darrell his second home. We, the Takaoka family, are honored to have met Dr. Randall who is a warm and caring person with his loving family. Darrell’s mom, Lorraine, will forever remember this young looking, charming and handsome gentleman who has a treasure, his wife, Helen, who is just a sweet and beautiful person. Darrell is now strumming his guitar to his friend, Dr. Randall and talking about aholeholes. With our love and peace—We dearly miss you, Dr. John Randall

As an avid marine aquarium hobbyist during my teen and early adult years, I was quite familiar with Jack’s popular fish books. It was not until 1995 when I began work at the Waikiki Aquarium that I first met the man himself when he visited while I assisted him with photographing a fish we had in one of our holding tanks. I had the pleasure of meeting Jack many times over my 13 years at WAQ, including one of John Earle’s famous fish geek nights hosted in his condo. I had the honor of diving with him of Kahe Point, Oahu in 2000 as documented by Bruce Carlson’s video he uploaded to this page. I remember watching Jack pull on his tattered and patched wetsuit, don his huge fins and just roll off the boat as his fins struck me in the head. Off he went and was soon gone from view before the rest of us were in the water. I asked “Shouldn’t he be diving with someone?”, to which I was told, “He’s diving in the same ocean as us so he’s fine.” In 2008, I moved to San Francisco to work at the Steinhart Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences, where I was able to meet and befriend John McCosker. John and I would often trade information on Jack and his yearly Christmas updates and his jokes. Later, in 2009 I was fortunate to co-author a paper with Jack on the longevity in fishes particularly the Gobiidae, based on my experiences in keeping some of these species for up to 10 years when I was at WAQ, as well as write a popular aquarium article on this topic. When I told him we would be paid for that article he was very surprised and thrilled to learn he would actually receive money for an article!

Jack, you have been an inspiration to us all, your humble demeanor and your infectious enthusiasm for all things fishy was inspirational, your works will continue to inspire young and old for decades to come.

My condolences to Helen and the rest of the Randall family on your loss.

I still think, when I see a new fish (to me) and wonder what it is, how will I know? I remember trying to describe a small eel to Jack over the phone once. I thought I had it down, every characteristic. And after very patiently listening to me go on and on, he said, “Do you have it with you?” With me? No . . . and no picture – so… I could almost see him shrug in my mind, and yet somehow, he made me feel that it was okay. Maybe since then I don’t feel as bad about those ones – but I take a camera more often.
Just think of how many generations of us he has touched and inspired. And how many more generations he will reach through all of us and the totality of what his life was – and still is.

Many in the HIMB ohana have been inspired and mentored by Jack. One of my treasured memories is when Jack would tell me he has a fish that might be a new species, but he’s not sure, so could we do that ‘genetic thing’? This partnership resulting in many publications, and perhaps more importantly, he drove the acceptance of genetic data as part of a species description. Jack would generously include the student who did the DNA sequencing on these species description, providing an early career highlight. I had a privilege of a lifetime in calling him friend.

“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirits fly”

As with many on this list, Jack was for me an inspiration, a legend, and a warm-hearted and always helpful friend. Though I met Jack several times at conferences and at Indonesian dive sites throughout the 90’s, I finally had the pleasure and honor to spend “quality time” with him in late 1999, when we spent a month together on a liveaboard traversing eastern Indonesia from North Sulawesi and across the Halmahera, Banda and Flores Seas til disembarking in Bali. My first child was merely a week old and I really should have remained at home, but my wife could see how excited I was at this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go exploring with my long-time hero, and graciously granted me permission. We had an amazing trip – starting with several days diving together in the Lembeh Strait, where Jack’s insatiable interest in ALL things marine (not just fishes!) was immediately on display. He was fascinated by the stomatopod crustaceans I was working on at the time, and he quickly devised a micro-spearing technique to capture some of the larger burrow-dwelling mantis shrimps we suspected were new – later co-authoring the description of Lysiosquillina lisa. Most of the trip was focused on fishes of course, and – like Rich Pyle relates above – I remember doing my utmost to keep up with Jack’s 5, 6 or 7 dives every day. After every dive Jack would be cursing his old Ikelite housing, which seemed to spring a new leak on every dive and was so covered in jerry-rigged repairs it was hard to make out what the contraption was (made all the more strange by the feminine hygiene products he shoved into every corner to soak up the inevitable leaks!). Nonetheless, I was in constant amazement at the sharp focus of his dwarfgoby shots – in between every dive he’d be in the liveaboard’s E6 processing lab and every evening, after the last night dive, he’d show us his best slides of the day! His energy and enthusiasm was unflagging – he was the Energizer bunny (rabbitfish?) on steroids. I’ll never forget when he woke me at 1am one morning to slip into the water and marvel at the thousands of flashlight fish that had migrated up the steep wall of the atoll where we were anchored – absolutely magical, and all the moreso to experience that with Jack. Sadly those were my last dives with Jack, though he continued to provide never-ending advice and encouragement for the next two decades – during which time I have been entertained by countless additional stories of Jack by his former student Gerry Allen. As evidenced by this tremendous collective outpouring of fond memories in this commemorative site (thanks Rich for putting this together), Jack leaves an incredible legacy through all the people he inspired and educated and awed over nearly a century on the planet – a legacy of touched lives which arguably outweighs even his literary and taxonomic legacies. Sampai jumpa, Jack. You will be greatly missed, but never forgotten…

And here is a photo taken immediately after the dive, with Sean, Jack and Sandy.

As a grad student working on fish eggs and larvae at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in the early 1970s, I of course, knew of Jack Randall as a legend, but had no expectation of ever collaborating with him. But I managed to rear some unfamiliar fish eggs, and discovered that they were of a porcupine fish, and wanted to identify the sole survivor, which the information in Gosline and Brock’s book had failed to do, in spite of the fact they reported only two porcupinefish species in Hawaii. So, I called the Bishop Museum and Jack invited me to bring in my small spiny fish to compare with the specimens in the collection and to take a stab at identification. Jack was very generous with his time, and enthusiastic about what I was trying to do, and I was able to identify my reared fish as Diodon holocanthus. But, while doing this, I found a third species of Diodon in the collection. Jack said it was probably a new species, and I should describe it, but in the process of doing so, I would need to check out all the nominal species of Diodon, and while I was doing that, I might as well revise the whole genus. Of course, to him this would have been easy. Naively, I said, “OK, I’ll do this in my spare time, while I’m doing my PhD project”. Jack offered his assistance. I first learned there were 28 nominal species of Diodon, most described over 100 years before, and was then disappointed to eventually discover that my ‘new’ species had, in fact been described in a single sentence in French in 1846.

On learning this, Jack generously suggested that we describe together a new species of Chilomycterus he had collected. This resulted in my sole co-authored paper with Jack, and my sole new species description. Jack was a member of my dissertation committee, a friend, and a constant example to me throughout my career. While I was still a grad student, he offered to organize a job for me in taxonomic ichthyology, an offer I could not accept at the time.

All this is so typical of the man Jack was, encouraging, helpful, enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable about so many aspects of ichthyology. How Jack was so productive and how he carried on correspondence with so many people, with such a rapid response to each one, was always a mystery to me. He did, of course, expect that others would respond as quickly and fully as he did.

As Geoff Jones and I surveyed the ichthyological ‘big names’ present at a reception at the 6th Indo Pacific Fish Conference, Geoff suggested that the IPFC should present a career achievement award at each conference. I thought it was a great idea, as did the IPFC Supervising Committee, resulting in the Bleeker Awards. Everyone knew that Jack had to be the winner of the first Bleeker at the 7th IPFC. As so many others have pointed out, Jack was more than a legend, and I was so pleased to have been associated with that history.

This photo is of Jack after receiving the first Bleeker Award at the 7th Indo Pacific Fish Conference in Taipei, along with Helen Randall and Jeff Leis

I’d like to start by saying a HUGE thank you to everyone that has contributed something to this page so far. His family has been reading through every post with gratitude. I have always held a sense of pride that I am able to call myself Jack Randall’s granddaughter. I have always known that he has been an inspiration to many in his field and has contributed immensely to the ichthyology community, but reading through this page has given me an even deeper understanding of how many lives he has touched throughout the world.
When he was not working on his fish he always wanted to stay active. That included walking down nearly every Sunday when I lived in the studio below his house to knock on the sliding glass door and get myself and my now husband to come out and play doubles with him and my brother Sean. He was very competitive and enjoyed beaming the birdie right back at me when I inadvertently set him up for the perfect shot. Even in the last couple of months I found a way to set up a badminton net in the house and we would play, him seated and me running all over the place and diving across the carpet to keep the rally going. Apparently it is much harder to aim the perfect shot to keep the birdie going than it is to play a regular competitive game. My mom ended up being his last badminton partner and claim they had a rally of 14!
I’m so thankful that we lived next door and that my girls were able to get to know him. He would let them touch the specimens he was working on, play on his ancient typewriter, and was the first to try and teach them how to catch a ball. And he would always share his ice cream with them! (Those who knew him well understand that this is a BIG deal as ice cream was his absolute favorite dessert)
I look forward to continuing to read further contributions to this site. Thank you all again, so much.

I first met Jack when he and Margaret Smith were on a field trip to the East coast of South Africa in 1976
Thereafter I corresponded with Jack over the years, sending him many fish photos from South Africa for ID and also for his numerous fish papers. I also had the honour to co-author with him some new fish species. In 2010 my wife and I spent a memorable morning at the home of Jack and Helen, together with John and Marcia Hoover and John Earl. To me this was one of the finest experiences of my life to be together with those knowledgeable fish people. I was always amazed and humbled by Jack’s energy, enthusiasm and dedication to producing so many fish papers. Also I enjoyed very much reading his memoirs as I could relate to them a great deal. He was a incredible person and contributed so much to the study of Ichthyology and we will sorely miss this fine man. May you Rest in Peace now dear Jack.
The attached photo was taken in 2010 at Jack’s home by John Earl together with Jack and Helen, John and Marcia Hoover and Dennis and Irma King.

Dear Jack,

I feel very sad to know you’re gone…

…..For the first time I wrote to him in the summer of 1993 to know the name of a wrasse. He soon replied to me ‘It is Cirrhilabrus rubrisquamis, male’ and I was so surprised. We started sending letters since then and I began to write a book on the genus, and soon he advised me to add the genus Parachelinus.

I leaned so many interesting stories about fish and ichthyologists of the world. We met at the 7th Indo-Pacific Fish Conference at Taipei, in May 2005. Then I brought a new book and he kindly gave an autograph on it.
You so kindly used an aquarium photo of Cirrhilabrus lineatus of my own.

We descibed a new Cirrhilabrus and he named it ‘dorsalis’, and I replied “If you are OK I want to call it naokoae”. Immediately he replied “Yes”.

Prof. Yukio Iwatsuki of Miyazaki University and I planned to meet him in Oahu last year but many medical tasks interrupted, and I deeply regret.
His letters, books, and emails are now my own treasury.

Much Much Aloha, Hiroyuki

I remember with pleasure the good times our families had when we were living on St John’s the Virgin Island. Jack was doing research for the National Park.
May his family find peace in remembering a life well lived.

I think Jack Randall had an exemplary life. He arrived and left at the right points in time: beginning when the technological and logistical support became available for wide-ranging work diving to collect and photograph live reef-fish, and finishing before humanities disastrous destruction of coral reef environments has completely trashed them. This was a beautiful window in time that he put to amazingly good use with those many hundreds of species of reef fishes from all three oceans that he found and described. I only dived with him a few times, but he set an example I’ve tried to follow: go to as many places in the tropics as possible and dive (often by yourself, although not as deep as him) and study reef fishes. His Indo-Pacific fish books are marvelous compendia of his and others’ knowledge, with the photographs usable by any fishwatcher and the technical knowledge by professional ichthyologists. I use them regularly as there are lots of species found all throughout the Pacific. He was always cooperative about sharing his fish information. Whenever I wrote or emailed him with a question about some species back came a prompt, pleasantly written answer with a lot of relevant detail and personal knowledge. The great majority of the information flow between us was from him to me. I am really glad the ICRS2016 in Hawaii awarded him the Darwin Medal in recognition of his monumental scientific production. He and his knowledge will be sorely missed.

I first met Jack in 1977 when he visited the Philippines where I was a US Peace Corps Volunteer with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources tasked with doing coral reef fish surveys. I was assigned to assist Jack collect fish and without that experience, I would never have been able to do my job. Back then, very few Indo-Pacific fish books existed, and Jack cheerfully and tirelessly taught me everything I needed to know. He visited the Philippines several times and I accompanied him everywhere he went; diving, market surveys, and photographing fishes into the wee hours of the night. His endless anecdotes, jokes and Donald Duck impressions were not only amusing, but taught the value of camaraderie in the field. He took me under his wing and offered me a post-Peace Corps job at the Bishop Museum which I took and stayed with Jack and Helen for many weeks until I found my own place. Jack and Helen were very generous with their hospitality and I had the great pleasure of working with both of them at their home at night, at the microscope on descriptions of new species of wrasses from the Philippines. Jack taught me, hands on, how to be a taxonomist and introduced me to other ichthyologists who also helped my career. I later joined the University of Hawaii Zoology Department for my graduate studies. Jack had not mentored anyone directly at UH for many years but we managed to maneuver him back on to the faculty. Jack assigned me to complete a taxonomic revision of the very messy Caesionidae, the Fusilier fishes. Of course, Pterocaesio randalli was deservedly the most handsome of the new species described. I owe my career trajectory to Jack, and so much more for his support and help throughout the years. He will be sorely missed by all who relied on him to identify the unidentifiable, just an email away, by the greatest ichthyologist that ever lived. Heartfelt condolences to Helen, Lori and the entire Randall clan.

I had the great pleasure of writing together with Richard Pyle, the introduction to what I believe is the most appropriate award to Jack of all his awards, the Bleeker Award for taxonomy in 2005 at the Indo-Pacific Fish Conference in Taiwan. I appended this below to contribute to honoring his career. It includes some additional verses from John Earle’s wonderful poem (posted above), which describe Jack’s place among the other giants of Ichthyology:

May, 2005
[note, fish species numbers here are 15 years old]

I have the honor of introducing the first recipient of the First Bleeker Award in Indo-Pacific Ichthyology.

For his lifetime distinguished accomplishments and outstanding contributions in the study of fish systematics in the Indo-Pacific region, this award goes to none other than Dr John E. Randall.

I’ve known Jack for about 30 years and the only true lament I ever heard him say was:
“My only regret in life is that I was born after Pieter Bleeker.” The idea, of course, if Jack had arrived in Indonesia at a time in history prior to Bleeker, that Jack would be at the top of the list in terms of numbers of fish species described, instead of Bleeker. Then this would be the first John Randall award that we would be giving out to who knows whom.

But History has it otherwise, in fact: In our time, there is no more appropriate recipient of the Bleeker Award in Systematics than Jack Randall. Bleeker himself was a man of undaunted energy and remarkable intellect. He channeled these qualities into ichthyology primarily in Indonesia, in a region where more fish species exist than any place else on earth, at a time when only a fraction of the species were known to science. The giants of systematic ichthyology built their reputations at a time when a small percentage of total fish species were described. Bleeker ended up describing 1,994 species, more than any other ichthyologist.

Jack’s accomplishments are no less impressive. Similar to Bleeker in terms of boundless energy and keen intellect, Jack adds an indomitable spirit of underwater adventure. Unlike in Bleeker’s time, Jack mostly has to hunt for increasingly more rare new species, spending long hours underwater. This has required fearless and intelligent use of SCUBA, the ability to recognize all known species, and skill in capturing the elusive valuable specimen. In these, Jack has no equal.

Above water, he applies the other traits that earn the reputation of a productive scientist: attention to detail and accuracy, sleuth in search of truth, and dedication to publication.

In terms of productivity, superlatives are insufficient; the numbers speak for themselves. Jack has described (to date) a total of 607 species. This places him as number 15 on the all-time list of authors of fish species. However, all those above him on this list had the distinct advantage of working at a time when there were still many species unknown to science. Jack sits at the top of the list in terms of ferreting out remaining undescribed species and in one other notable category: coral reef species. He described 582 coral reef fishes with only Bleeker coming close to this with 537.

To be fair, Jack had one other big advantage aside from SCUBA that Bleeker lacked: photography. Jack invented an excellent method of taking photos of newly collected dead specimens. This, together with superb underwater photographic ability has helped him communicate new discoveries and the diversity of coral reef fishes. I would like to close this introduction with a small excerpt from a poem about Jack Randall that was authored by John Earle:

It is altogether fitting and appropriate that the first Bleeker award for fish systematics go to Jack Randall.

JackRandallBleekerAwardIntroFinal

Ever since joining Bishop Museum in 1971, I have known Jack not only as a pre-eminent scientist but also as a fine human being–upstanding, kind and compassionate. If the world had just one more like him we would all be so much better off.

Jack inspired me and so many others and his Indo Pacific fish titles are well worn on my bookshelf. I recall house sitting for him in Kaneohe in the 1980s..he was off to Palau with Richard Pyle..I dropped them at the airport but as they left Jack ran back and we had to drive back to the Museum for his favourite speargun…cool as a cucumber. Jack’s plenary talk ICRS 2016 was one of the best…full of history humor insights and irreverence. Best to all his family

Jack’s Family, Friends, and Colleagues
We have been saddened by the death of a fabulous person and a great scientist. I never met Jack in person but I was honored to be introduced to him by Peter Vine in 2016 during my hunt for a scientist who would contribute a chapter in our book on the fishes of the Red Sea. We got very friendly in a matter of a few weeks and then we started sharing our personal stories, adventures, and research experiences. I remember asking him for a recent photograph for the book. His reply was “…this is the only one I have and I look good”. My last email to him was early this year requesting him to contribute a page on the facts and figures related to the fishes of the Red Sea but unfortunately, it did not materialize. It was a privilege to have known him and a great honor to publish his research in our book (probably his last major contribution) – Thank, you Sir!
We will miss you, Jack!
Our heartfelt condolences to Helen and the entire family.
Najeeb Rasul

Oceanographic and Biological Aspects of the Red Sea
Chapter 14 “Endemic Fishes of the Red Sea”
Sergey V. Bogorodsky and John E. Randall
Springer 2019

BIOGRAPHY (attached) of an Ichthyologist and a Great Scientist
Preface of the book in which we talked about his achievements

…….”We would also like to mention Dr. John E. Randall who is a Senior Ichthyologist Emeritus at the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and is a co-author of the chapter on endemic fishes of the Red Sea. He has been carrying out research in marine zoology since obtaining a B.A. in 1950 from UCLA and a Ph.D. in marine zoology in 1955 from the University of Hawai’i. He has
received numerous awards for his work, served on the editorial board of several journals, and remains as editor of the scientific series he founded, Indo-Pacific Fishes. He has over 900 publications, including 13 guidebooks on fishes. He has described 799 valid new species of marine fishes”.

I must have met Jack for the first time at one of the ASIH meetings that I attended in the early 1960s as a graduate student. As my research was on lanternfishes, we didn’t have much interaction until I moved to the Australian Museum. In 1973 both of us were part of a team of eight fishos that spent a memorable month on Lord Howe Island collecting fishes by a variety of methods, that resulted in 200+ species newly recorded from the island (Allen et al., 1976). After dinner we often played table tennis, and Jack did not like to lose; neither did I but I learned to live with it. Later, whenever an IPFC conference was held we found a table to renew the battles. The only time I won was by default at his house, when he slipped and sprained an ankle. I fared even worse with tennis, frustrating as Jack always ran around any shot to the left side so he could hit a forehand. All were played with good spirit.

Many have commented on how rapidly he would respond to correspondence. Before email this wasn’t a problem. Afterwards, Jack expected answers pretty quickly. I found that if you responded straight away, the next question followed quickly, related to the previous question or maybe a new area. I Iearned to wait some time before answering, unless some free hours were ahead.

Many have commented that Jack’s book on their particular area is the best identification reference available. The same is true of the Coral Sea off northeastern Australia, where two editions of the Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea by Randall, Allen and Steene fill that niche.

Both Jack’s exploits and achievements are legendary, a remarkable foundation for future scientific advancement. It has been a pleasure to know him for some 50 years. Helen, Hannelore and I send our commiserations you and your extended family.

I met Jack in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the late 1970’s or early 80’s. He had come to work on a book of Red Sea Fish and had contacted my friend and dive partner, Hagen Schmid, who had a dive shop in Jeddah. Hagen drove him to dive spots north of Jeddah and was his dive partner, but, when Hagen couldn’t go, I went with Jack. My strongest memory was one dive where the wall of the reef descended to about 110 feet. Cruising along at about 80 feet, Jack saw some garden eels at the base of the reef and decided (as I recall) to poison one or two and retrieve them. We were already near the end of our bottom time, but apparently Jack wasn’t thinking about bottom time. I didn’t want to go that deep, so I stayed above him at about 90 feet hoping that he would come up soon. He eventually did, obviously, and for some reason didn’t suffer any decompression sickness.
I later visited Jack and Helen on Oahu and dove with Jack on Maui on 1/10/1992and again, I think, in Jan., 2000. Jack led a wonderful and enviable life and had a beautiful family I feel honored to have known him. (in the photo, Jan Copeland, Mike Severns, Pauline, Jack, ?)

Jack Randall was a remarkable person, and was always an inspiration to me (and so many others) with his indefatigable energy and interest in nearly everything marine and/or fishy. There are a thousand others whose scientific spheres intersected with Jack over the years, nearly invariably positive, but in the total scope and level of collaborations, he was singular. Look at his voluminous list of publications and see how many others were co-authors with Jack and this provides one measure of his influence. I (and my colleagues) had the honor of hosting him at the locations I where I have worked and lived over the years; Puerto Rico, Enewetak, Papua New Guinea and Palau; having known and worked with him for nearly 50 years. My first scientific reprints were from, part of a rather large packet that arrived in the mail one day in 1968. He would spend more time in the water than anyone I have ever seen, and after he was done making 4 or 5 dives during the day, he would stay up half the night preserving specimens, taking fish photos or writing notes. The next day, he would do it again and the day after that. We had to take turns diving with him as no single person could keep up with him.

His correspondence and notes were voluminous, typed out in the days before computers on a manual typewriter. When I was a grad student at the University of Miami in the late 1960’s, we had in the records of the fish collection a type-written set of the field notes he had banged out years earlier when he and Helen were in the Virgin Island. Browsing through those was an object lesson in how a superb scientist would go about recording their field work and make certain it would be there for others to carry forward from in the future. At the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez where I ended up in 1974 (with no small thanks to Jack) he was a legend among the clerical staff, known as “el hombre de las cartas”, the ‘man of the letters’, as his daily intake and output of mail from and to all points of the world kept them in awe. That continued throughout his life.

Jack Randall, in addition to his unparalleled expertise in systematic Ichthyology, was a superb underwater naturalist. Starting from his early days, he discovered and published the first scientific records and knowledge of so many things; reef fish spawning aggregations, ciguatera and clupeid poisoning, grazing halos around reefs, food habits of reef fishes, shark attacks, artificial reefs, marine reserves and parks, mimicry, symbiosis between fishes and shrimps, cleaning behavior, and a dozen more subjects that have become individual areas of study in tropical marine environments. One of the most esoteric of those, was an article entitled “Triggerfish bite – a little-known marine hazard”, published in 1990 in the Journal of Wilderness Medicine. As was usually case, Jack’s interest (as detailed in the paper) in this arcane subject was the result of personal experience, having himself been bitten several times. Another famous story is the time in the Florida Keys he put a speared soapfish (Rypticus)in his swim trunks, lacking anywhere else to put the specimen, and thereby discovered the slime of these fishes was a powerful skin irritant.

Jack (fortunately) collected a lot of fishes, but all those specimens went towards his goals of building collections, and then using those collections to inform our taxonomic, zoogeographic and ecological knowledge and understanding. None were wasted. In a lesson for young biologists today, who seem to be eternally embarrassed to admit to collecting any specimens for their work, you do not have to apologize for doing what you need to do. Just collect wisely and use those specimens. Jack epitomized that ethic.

The way things have changed in tropical marine science and today you probably could not have a “Jack Randall”, at least in all his various personas, coming up through the ranks today. Jack was known, particularly in his early decades, for diving at what might be called the “outer limits” of scuba diving; depths today known as mesophotic (just “deep reefs” back then), because that is where new fishes were found. As a result, Jack ended up on a few occasions having bouts of the “bends”, eventually resolved without permanent damage. Same thing goes for repetitive dives, today so simple with dive computers, which were a game of figuring out from the tables what you could and could not get away with. To him it was just part of the risk, which he personally accepted, but today a diving officer, or someone thinking themselves the diving police, would try to stop you.

There are, of course, thousands of ”Jack Randall stories”. One of my personal favorites has to do with the western Atlantic parrotfish Sparisoma ribripinne. Jack and Helen worked on this fish while in St. John, and discovered its spawning aggregation when he found them gathered on the edge of a reef off Reef Bay in late afternoon. This led to a landmark study published in Zoologica in 1963, including photos taken from frames of movie footage Jack shot documenting the fish’s spawning. Based on this pioneering study, I was able to revisit the site (after following Jack’s specific notes in this time long before GPS) in 1977 and 1988 to find the fish still using this same site. When I told Jack of this he was immensely pleased to know that “his” fish were still at it a quarter century later (and then proceeded to tell me again the whole story of him getting “bent” while working on this study).

I will cherish the visits with Jack and Helen in their “botanist’s paradise” in Kaneohe. His library was immense, as was his knowledge of reef fishes and the ocean. One last story. Jack was always the “source of last resort”, when it came to fish identifications. Whenever we had an underwater photo or specimen we could not identify, after every other option had been deployed, off went a letter or email to Jack. He would immediately come back and say, “it’s this or that”. If was likely something new, he would suggest it belonged on one genus or another and tell us to get a specimen. He was always right on his IDs (and especially interested if it was a new geographic record or had some other new twist). Ten years ago, I had a photo of a strange fish, which looked like to brotulid to me, taken in a reef cave in Palau. I could not find anything like it in any definitive guide book, so I emailed the picture to Jack. He quickly wrote back saying, “he had never seen this fish before” and had no idea what it was. Jack Randall stumped? This was very strange, as he knows every reef fish under the ocean. Turns out the fish in question was (at that time) the unpublished new family, genus and species of eel, Protanguilla palau; and represented the most “primitive” group of eels known (described by Dave Johnson et al. in 2011). That is what it took to stump Jack Randall!

He has always been there, throughout my tenure of working in the ocean, and will be with us in spirit whenever we leap into the ocean to discover the new and unknown.

Pat Colin

Jack Randall

In the early days of skin- and scuba diving from the 1950-ties on, it could happen you met a fish you were not able to determine. The reason why was on the one hand the lack of good fish-guides (Jack and many others have filled that gap meanwhile) and on the other hand many new species were found at places where fishermen could not get them and these waited for descriptions. Jack used that opportunity like nobody else. That times I often found fishes with special colour forms or I had difficulties with determination. If I was able to take photographs of them, I sent these to Jack and he always took time to give detailed informations about the points I wanted to know etc.
In the years before computers and internet it took quite a long time to get an answer, not only because of postal delay but also because Jack was out for “fishing”. Many of those answers I store in my archives and they are unique with an original autograph of Jack. So I enclose one for example. Jack most times used an aerogramm unknown to many of the younger people. So I give a description here. This was a prepaid sheet of thin paper, on one side imprinted with a stamp and words (plus pictures) of famous people and spaces for adresses. The backside was free for the letter. For sending you had to fold the paper the right way three times to get the right size, to fix the gummed hinge and to show the addresses and stamps. Then the post transported it via airmail (or not). So one week or sometimes one month or more later I’ve got the letter.
Though I have not met Jack personally, I had a lot of correspondence with him and so he was since decades a good companion on my way through the world under water

Horst Moosleitner

Its a great miss. More than the wonderful dives, the science which was brought out from these dives will be remembered forever.

Reading through these pages drives home what I missed by leaving a youthful indiscretion aimed at fish, to focus on the spineless instead – getting to know Jack better. I first corresponded with him in 1979 when setting out for a long trip to Rapa Island. Jack has of course been there, “did” the fishes and explored the underwater habitats. I was planning to study weevils, but being the marine type, wanted to check out the ocean as well. Never having spent time in the tropics, I asked Jack whether a wetsuit would be advisable at Rapa’s latitude. His reply was yes, unless you have a fair supply of adipose tissue. He has always been helpful with information about the Pacific above and below waters as we corresponded over the years.

An honor and an unforgettable rewarding experience for a – at that time young – ichthyologist to meet and work, even little, with John ‘Jack’ Randall. Thanks for your fantastic work, wonderful pictures of fishes and your kindness. Pour tout cela, soyez-en remercié !

Some people never die and Jack Randall is certainly one of them. He may not be with us any more in a physical sense, but he will be around forever through his monumental body of research papers and books. Helen, Lori, Rod and families, my heart is with you at this sad time. Jack was a very special person and he didn’t have to work hard at it. He just had to be Jack Randall. I think I won’t be wrong in saying that all who had known him personally will agree.

Reading through earlier postings, I am also one of the many who owe their career to Jack’s encouragement, guidance and mentorship. I met him in Jerusalem in the summer of 1974 when I had just completed my BSc. I walked into Prof. Adam Ben-Tuvia’s office and he introduced me to an American visitor he named Jack Randall. I had no idea who Jack was at that time, but by the end of the meeting he asked me to be his diving assistant while working in Eilat. This was the beginning of a long lasting relationship, both professional and personal, in which I worked at the Bishop as a research assistant and had the pleasure of getting to know Helen, Lori and Rod. The first couple of days with Jack in the field made it quite clear to me that I’m in for the hard work. We were driving, diving, collecting, pinning out fish and photographing them till late at night. Sometimes there was no stopping him and I had to go and get some food for dinner while he was carrying on with photography. Jack returned to the Gulf of Aqaba every year until 1977 and I joined him on every one of these memorable trips which lasted several weeks at a time – the best introduction to fish taxonomy one could hope for. Jack wouldn’t just give a name for a species – he always had a story to tell about it. This was a very special time in my life and it will stay with me to my last day.

The photo was taken at the Randall’s home during my last visit to Hawaii (2005).

So strange: I had the strong impulse to check-in with Jack and Helen the day before Jack’s passing. Too bad it was via e-mail. Life is bizarre that way.

Jack Randall was my hero, not because of all the insanely deep dives he did (on air), or even because of his many hundreds of impressive publications on the taxonomy and systematics of coral-reef fishes, but rather because of his seminal field experiments on the ecology of reef fishes early in his career. Jack paved the way for all following subtidal marine ecologists, providing mechanistic insights revealed by manipulations, using cages to show the effects of herbivorous fishes on the standing crop of benthic algae (1961 Ecology), and benthic transplants and artificial reefs to document the role of herbivores in the formation of patch-reef halos (1965 Ecology). Of course, as the consummate undersea naturalist, Jack also made a vast number of observational contributions to the ecology of reef fishes, spanning topics as diverse ciguatera, mimicry, food habits (citation classic!), and zoogeography.

I first heard about Jack from my graduate mentor, Al Ebeling, who was an undergraduate with Jack at UCLA in the 1940s. Jack had asked Al to sail with him to Hawai‘i, yet Al’s parents intervened. I learned about Jack’s remarkable adventures from Gordon Tribble, who was my undergraduate field assistant in the 1970s. Although I was introduced to Jack now and then at various conferences, it was not until I moved back to Hawai‘i in 2013 that I started to spend time with him and Helen at their Kaneohe home, thanks to Brian Bowen taking me on my first visit.

Jack was always exceptionally kind to me – publishing with me and even nominating me for awards – and to my graduate students, who loved hearing Jack’s stories. I did my best to honor Jack by featuring him as one of the “foundational cornerstones of 20th century coral reef fish ecology” in a review paper (2011 Bulletin of Marine Science), and by nominating him for the Darwin Medal (“not Darwin Award” he loved to remind visitors) bestowed by the International Coral Reef Society at their 13th symposium in Honolulu in 2016 (many thanks to Peter Sale for carrying my nomination forward).

I was fortunate to take Jack on his final snorkel trip in 2016. It was a typical beautiful Tuesday morning at Hanauma Bay, the day of the week closed to the public. We carefully wheeled Jack to the water’s edge in a dune-buggy wheelchair and helped him don his fins, mask, and snorkel. Once in the water, he was gone, blasting around the inner bay, all the while chasing fish! It reminded me of the final scene of the movie “Big Fish,” where the son lowers his dying father into the water, and the old man transforms into a giant fish.

Swim on, Jack, in my heart forever.

Jack with Peter Sale, Mark Hixon, Ryan Jones, Erik Brush, and Eric Dilley, Kaneohe, HI, 12/10/17.

Silk Screen print inspired by the Ichthyology collections at Bishop Museum, most of which are collected by Jack Randall.

I met Jack since I was a reserach assistant in Academia Sinica in 1970’s. He was my mentor in fish taxonomy and a good friend of mine and we communicated all via e-mails. He was so generous, kindness and very quickly to answer all of my unidentified fish questions. It was my honor to have the opportunity to award him the 1st Bleeker Award in 7th IPFC in Taipei in 2005. The last time I met him was at his home when I attended the ICRS13 in Hawaii in 2016. He received the Darwin Award in the Conference. He still looks very well and heathy and so warmful. So, it was sad and sorry to hear Jack’s passing. My sincere condolences to Helen and the rest of the Randall family on your loss.

20200504–Jack Randall’s two photos —SKT

Like many aspiring fish researchers, i thought Jack was the king of fishes. In 2015 i working at HIMB and my supervisor (Brian Bowen) told me to go see Jack up at his house. I didnt think i was worthy of his time and was too nervous to go by myself so i tagged along with Brian. Jack put me at ease straight away and we talked fish for so long that I didnt realise it was dark and that Helen was waiting to cook dinner. Sorry Helen and thank you for your patience. I visited a few more times and learnt so much. I was amazed that someone who achieved so much, was so humble and would take the time to talk to students/post-docs. Mahalo Jack, you will always be an inspiration. My sincerest condolences to Helen and the family.

2016.6.18 (ICRS13) My wife and I visited his home.

BIOGRAPHY of a LEGEND (published in the ‘Oceanographic and Biological Aspects of the Red Sea’, Springer 2019.

John E. Randall
Research Scientist
Bishop Museum, 1525 Bernice St.,
Honolulu, HI 96817-2704, USA
[email protected]

Dr. John Randall is a Senior Ichthyologist Emeritus at the Bishop Museum, Honolulu. He obtained a BA in zoology in 1950 from UCLA and was awarded Phi Beta Kappa. In 1950, he sailed a 37-foot ketch from California to Hawai’i where he earned a Ph.D. in marine zoology in 1955 from the University of Hawai’i. With support of a fellowship from Yale University and the Bishop Museum, he sailed the ketch to Tahiti and spent two years in research on fishes and ciguatera fish poisoning at the island of Moorea. From 1961 to 1964 he was an assistant professor at the University of Miami, the last three years directing a marine biological survey of the Virgin Islands National Park on the island of St. John. He accepted a position as Professor of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico in 1965 and became the Director of the University’s Institute of Marine Biology a year later. He returned to Hawai’i in 1965 where he served for one year as director of the Oceanic Institute on O’ahu before taking a split position at the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology and the Bishop Museum for one year. He was then full time as Senior Ichthyologist at the museum until retirement in 2009. He has served on the editorial board of several journals and remains as editor of the scientific series he founded, Indo-Pacific Fishes. His awards include the Stoye Award in 1954 for the best student paper in ichthyology at the meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. In 1980, he received the Robert H. Gibbs, Jr. Memorial Award in Ichthyology. In 1983, he became a Distinguished Fellow of ASIH Society, an honorary position he holds to the present. In 1985 he was selected as an honorary member of the Ichthyological Society of Japan, followed by the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of Hawai’i in 1989, and the Nogi Award in Science in 1990. In 2005 he received the American Diving Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2007, the Hawai’i Living Reef Award, followed by an honorary doctorate from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji in 2008. He has over 900 publications, including 14 guidebooks on fishes. He has described 799 valid new species of marine fishes.

Jack always made himself so accessible and he took every new fish as an adventure. Whether it was a marine biologist or a local fisherman, anyone felt welcome to bring their weird fish up to the Museum where he would examine it eagerly, whether it was new to him or not. That fun combination of a scientist, an explorer and a kid in a candy shop put everyone and ease and ensured new ideas were always coming his way. We will miss this humble, kind and knowledgeable kupuna across the Pacific and the world. Fortunately, because of the ease with which he shared his interest, he has left many new experts in his powerful wake. Aloha and mahalo nui loa!

Dearest Helen, our thoughts are with you during this time of sadness. Sally and I will always treasure the time spent at your home in Kaneohe with you, Jack and Lori. Over the years we had met with Jack at various fish seminars. Although we were just hobbyist fish watchers he always had time to chat about what he was busy doing, and give advice on fish behaviour and Id fish for us.
I corresponded regularly with Jack for more than 20 years. He was always quick to respond and often surprised me by the large amount of detail he went into when answering a fairly simple question. His
enthusiasm was infectious and he was extremely supportive of the work I was doing on my website. He also kindly gave me access to his treasure trove of fish pictures. He could however become extremely pushy if he wanted someone to collect a specimen or send him pictures.
We were extremely surprised and delighted when Jack together with Allan Connell and Benjamin Victor named a fish after us. This was the type of kind gesture which Jack was known for.

Johnston Atoll 1982.
Birds knew they were safe

I’ve never met physically Jack. But he has always been a genuine gentleman to provide kindly answers and clues to identifications of fish species. A certain idea of sciences you were, Jack.

Aloa !

It’s an honor to be among an international who’s who of ichthyologists remembering Jack. He deserves no less. I know Helen and Lori and Rod can only take pride in this outpouring of admiration and appreciation.
I found out after the fact that Jack’s reputation for memorable dives made it difficult for him to enlist buddies. The fact in this case was I went diving with Jack several times. Each time was . . . memorable.
It was 1968 and I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the fisheries program in Palau. Jack was on a collecting expedition with a stop in Palau. The fisheries program got tabbed to lend him boats and equipment. No one else seemed interested so I innocently volunteered to pump tanks, drive the boat, and serve as the requisite dive buddy. I had made maybe a dozen or so dives up to that time. Little did I know.
Our first dive was on a forereef, running a poison station – my first — in 50 feet. As we were gearing up, Jack mentioned that he had been diagnosed with kidney stones and if he passed one underwater to not even try to get him to the surface, just leave him thrash and drown. An inauspicious beginning.
On the bottom, we spread rotenone and Jack pulled out his micro-spear and got to work. Soon we were surrounded by dead, dying, and struggling fish. Jack gave the out-of-air signal, pointing to the back of his tank. He was still diving with a double hose regulator which was malfunctioning. He pointed up to the boat and ascended, signaling for me to wait on the bottom. All I could think of was Lloyd Bridges’ reminder to never dive alone. No sooner had he disappeared than a very large Silvertip Shark (C. albimarginatus) started circling me – I still remember that it had a Rainbow Runner accompanying it, right between its pectorals. This is one of the sharks the Palauans respected greatly. When Jack returned, the shark disappeared. It must have known better.
Our next dive was a shallow poison station in the lagoon, next to the Koror boatyard. The rotenone cloud got away from us (!!) just as a large school of akule scad (Decapterus sp.) swam through. Fish started dying all over the place. Jack immediately began gathering up scad in his net bag, pointing to his mouth and making eating motions. I followed suit. When we surfaced with our “catch,” we were met by a dozen angry workers from the boatyard standing on the concrete wall. I received an official reprimand from both the Peace Corps and Palauan Government on that one. The scad were delicious, fried in butter, Jack’s favorite fish recipe.
Having not yet learned, I joined Jack and four other visiting ichthyologists on a drop-off poison station in 100 feet. It was one of Jack’s “planned” decompression dives – basically use up your air at depth then ascend to the shallow reef flat with a second tank to blow off the nitrogen. And run another poison station. Dying fish tumbled down the reef and I dropped repeatedly to maybe 150 feet picking them up. As the smallest person, and an incorrigible skip breather, I was last to return to the boat for my second tank. Unfortunately, only eleven tanks had been loaded into the boat by the dive manager (me), leaving me without a decompression tank. We raced back to Fisheries, grabbed a double, and put me down in ten feet for two hours to burn off the gas. The dive yielded a dozen new species and one new genus, a wrasse. And I got slightly bent, with a sore elbow for a year. And another reprimand.
After each trip, Jack would photograph the fish we collected long into the night. He had an elaborate set-up with lights, water bath, and a large reflex camera. He spent hours prepping each specimen, filling in details with colored pencils, moving scales from the right side to the left to cover holes created by his micro-spear. Then inevitably he would take the roll of film out of the camera and set it down in a pool of formalin while he moved to the next fish. My job was to rescue things.
A real highlight of Jack’s visits to Palau over the next two years were trips up and down the archipelago, collecting fish and spending evenings in the men’s houses. We would show reef fish photos to the Palauans while I recorded Palauan fish names (I think all we had for photos were JLB Smith’s Sea Fishes of South Africa). The old men chewed betel nut and argued long into the evening over local names, where and when to find the fish, etc. Jack quickly became respected because he was the only Westerner they had met who knew that two very different parrotfish with different Palauan names were actually the male and female of the same species. The Palauans knew this because they caught them together in spawning aggregations. This resulted in my first fish paper, “Palauan fish names” (1973. Pacific Science 27), with me as first author! Jack was always gracious about authorship and included me on two other papers, giving me three pubs coming out of the Peace Corps, a real jumpstart to my career.
More than a jump start. I really owe my becoming an ichthyologist to Jack’s continued generosity and encouragement. We maintained correspondence over the years and I don’t doubt my acceptance into grad programs for a Master’s at U. Hawaii and a Ph.D. at Cornell were due to Jack’s letters of recommendation. They must have been convincing to make up for a less-than-spectacular undergrad academic record (Hey! It was Berkeley in the 60s; lots of distractions). I was delighted to be able to dedicate the first edition of our ichthyology textbook to Jack for his mentorship. And he never once expressed disappointment that I strayed from taxonomy to behavior. Thanks Jack for everything, and thanks to Helen and Lori and Rod for their gracious hospitality to Judy and me over the years.

I first met Jack as a M.S. student at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory in the late 1970s. We did a number of collecting dives together over the years, most notably on Guam, at Miyake-jima in the Izu Islands of Japan, and Christmas Island in the Line Islands. Jack was a mentor during my Ph.D work on hawkfishes (Cirrhitidae) and remained so throughout my professional career. He was always helpful and generous with his time, access to the Bishop collection and his library, and the hospitality of his home, too. He had a certain energy about him. I thought he’d be describing fish species forever. My condolences and best wishes to Helen and the family.

Jack was always happy to sign books and answer your questions about fish.

The public at large and scientists who are not taxonomists share a view of taxonomists as hard to connect with and sometimes remote; this may apply to some of them, but as with everything, there are exceptions. One of these exceptions was Jack Randall.

John Ernest Randall was born in 1924 in Los Angeles, California. He studied at UCLA and then went to the University of Hawai’i, which he left in 1955 with a Ph.D. After various jobs in Florida and Puerto Rico, he became a Senior Ichthyologist at the Bishop Museum in Hawai’i (see Wikipedia), the position he held when he began his association with FishBase.

Given that he already was, at the time, the author of 10 books, over 500 scientific papers, and the person who described over 600 new species of fish, we were delighted when he accepted an invitation to an international workshop held in October 1995 in the Philippines. Jack (see photo) and other taxonomists verified the contents of FishBase and made constructive suggestions for its improvement. It is also when he decided to give FishBase access to a collection of over 10,000 underwater photographs of Caribbean and Indo-Pacific reef fishes he had spent decades assembling.

At the time, FishBase suffered enormously from a lack of fish pictures, most of which are copyrighted and, therefore, could not directly be incorporated as is possible with other content. The situation was so bad that we resorted to scanning and showing fish stamps (which, in the process, made FishBase the largest repository of scanned fish stamps). While we are now still missing photos for many species in FishBase, Jack’s gift and support of FishBase contributed crucially to its current near-universal acceptance.

Rainer Froese wrote: “What a role model; Jack is one of my heroes. I still remember how I was ‘schlepping’ his suitcase full of outdated photo-equipment through Manila airport, and how he gave a highly educational talk about taxonomy, showing slides of underwater photos in alphabetic sequence of the scientific names…”

Nicolas Bailly recalls: “I have seen Jack diving in strong current conditions in Durban during the 6th Indo-Pacific Fish Conference with his underwater camera of course. He was 77 then, and still continuing making underwater photos of coral reef fishes, his life-lasting pioneering and exploring activity. With Jack, a legend of coral reef fish biodiversity has passed. However, there is no doubt that his work will remain the foundation of much of ichthyology”.

Nicolas Bailly, incidentally notes that as of early 2020, Jack has described 834 species of which 802 are considered valid. Given that further descriptions will appear posthumously (Richard Pyle, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, pers. comm.), Jack might beat the record of the Dutch taxonomist Pieter Bleeker (1819-1878), who has 837 currently valid species to his name.

In 1998, Jack was a resource person at a FishBase workshop held in Trinidad and Tobago. He went diving among the reefs of Tobago with Deng Palomares who wrote “I remember how elated I felt when I was given the privilege of going on a dive with Jack Randall in Tobago (I have his signature on my dive log to prove it). He was on the lookout for a fish that exhibited perfect camouflage. I remember how graceful he was underwater and how quiet he swam in spite of all the hardware he was carrying while looking for the fish he wanted to photograph. A true naturalist transformed into a fish as soon as he hit the water! That was the epitome of my diving experience as a marine biologist, which I took and will take with me on each dive.”

I was on the same dive, and we observed how he patiently took many close-up photos of fish. I remained in the background, marveling at how he could make such beautiful photos without flash. But when we surfaced, he exploded “[expletive], my flash didn’t work!” which shows that this famous ichthyologist lived in the same world that we all do.

This was also evident from an earlier story he told me about a South African ichthyologist trying to convince him to come work in South Africa in the 1970s, during the darkest days of apartheid. He had a good sales pitch, Jack said to me, but then the guy casually mentioned that, obviously, he could not bring his wife Helen along, because she was of Chinese ancestry….

Jack Randall was not only a fish taxonomist and an accomplished underwater photographer. From 1961 to 1965, while a professor of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, where he wrote the classic on Caribbean Fishes (Randall 1968), he also tagged an immense number of fish and published his entire data set. This enabled their re-analysis, and the assessment that even a small summer-winter temperature difference (2 °C), affected the growth of fishes (Pauly and Ingles 1981).

Also, he published an extensive study of the food and feeding habits of Caribbean reef fishes (Randall 1967). Again, he made all his data available, and they were used by one of my first doctoral students, Ms. Silvia Opitz, to fill in the diet matrix for the most comprehensive ever Ecopath model of a coral reef (Opitz, 1996). We also used Jack’s food and feeding habits study to guide us in designing the ‘Diet Table’ of FishBase, which now contains thousands of entries and has helped hundreds of colleagues parameterize Ecopath and other food-web models.

Ms Emily Capuli, the FishBase team member who keeps track of new species wrote “I worked with [Jack] in Hawaii for a month and during the WCP workshop. I told him that he reminded me of Harrison Ford as the Indiana Jones character searching for new treasures and adventures, both in looks (when he was young) and career in life. […] He gave] us a lot of photos and references and have always been helpful. Every time and any time (literally) I wrote him for help, he answered my emails.”

Ms. Rachel ‘Aque’ Atanacio, who is the FishBase artist, and who therefore processed the many slides he donated to us, should have the last word. She described Jack as follows in a FishBase newsletter of 2017:

“Collaborator since 1990 (http://www.fishbase.us/collaborators/CollaboratorSummary.php?id=50.); main contribution: more than 11,000 fish pictures for 178 families, generously made available to the public under a Creative Commons license allowing the use of the images for non-commercial purposes. Jack, as he is fondly called by friends and colleagues, has been and still is a very active collaborator of FishBase. He has visited the FishBase team [in the Philippines] twice, once in 1995 and another time in the early 2000s, thus giving us an opportunity to work with him and benefit from his expertise as a leading authority on coral reef fishes.

Now, even at his advanced age, he is still very busy describing new species, writing and editing scientific papers, and ensuring that FishBase gets a copy of his latest paper and publication. Dr Randall never disappoints and will answer whenever he is being consulted for his opinion on a fish ID. For these reasons, Dr Randall will always be considered, not only as an invaluable collaborator, but a friend of FishBase.”

References

Froese, R. and D. Pauly (Editors). 2000. FishBase 2000: Concepts, Design and Data Sources. ICLARM, Los Baños, Philippines, 346 p. [Previously with up to 4 CD-ROMs; previous annual editions: 1996 – 1999. Also available in Portuguese (1997, transl. of the 1996 edition), French (1998, updated transl. of the 1997 edition by N. Bailly and M.L.D. Palomares) and Chinese (2003, transl. of the 2000 edition by Kwang-Tsao Shao, Taiwan); updates in http://www.fishbase.org).

Opitz, S. 1996. Trophic interactions in Caribbean coral reefs. ICLARM Technical Reports 43, 341 p.

Pauly, D. and J. Ingles. 1981. Aspects of the growth and mortality of exploited coral reef fishes, p. 89-98 In: E. Gomez, C.E. Birkeland, R.W. Buddemeier, R.E. Johannes, J.A. Marsh and R.T. Tsuda (eds.). Proceedings of the Fourth International Coral Reef Symposium. Manila, Philippines.

Randall, J.E., 1967. Food habits of reef fishes of the West Indies. Studies in Tropical Oceanography 5: 665-847.

Randall, J.E., 1968. Caribbean reef fishes. TFH Publications, Jersey City, 318 p.

Randall.J.E.1962.Tagging reef fishes in the Virgin Islands. Proc. Gulf and Caribb. Fish. Inst. 14: 201-241.

Photo: Jack Randall at an FAO/ICLARM/MSI/NORAD workshop held in early October 1995
in the Philippines, and devoted to the creation guide the fishery resources of the Central
Western Pacific (see Froese and Pauly 2000, p. 13). Photo by Rachel ‘Aque’ Atanacio.

I want to emphasize again how WONDERFUL it is that everyone is posting such amazing stories and thoughts and photos of Jack! It has been incredibly helpful to me, personally, and I know it means a lot to Helen and the rest of Jack’s family as well. I’m still trying to absorb the enormity of it all, and it will take me some time to fully process it.

I noticed in many of the photos posted, Jack’s face is often rather “stoic”. I’m not sure why he tended to put on his “serious” face when the cameras came out, but as anyone who spent time with him knows, he had a wonderful sense of humor, and was almost always smiling and laughing and joking. When I imagine him in my mind, it is always with a big grin, usually presented in the wake of some wry or ironic comment, the likes of which often filled our conversations to the point where we forgot what we had been talking about.

This prompts me to recount one of my all-time personal favorite memories of Jack. It was in the early 1990s during one of our expeditions to the Ogasawara Islands with Hitoshi Ida, John Earle, Johnson Kimura and others. We had been staying at a bed-and-breakfast type house run by an incredibly sweet and small elderly Japanese woman. She didn’t speak a word of English, nor did we speak any Japanese, but we somehow developed a friendship with her as we returned every evening after a long day of diving, and every morning when she served us breakfast.

One evening, after a particularly long day of diving (as has already been reported amply in the posts on this page, every day of diving with Jack is a long day of diving…), Jack and I wearily walked up to the house, shortly before sunset. The wonderful caretaker was standing by the front door of the two-story building waiting for our arrival. As we approached, she launched into a long monologue in Japanese, while pointing up to the window of the second-story room that Jack and I were staying in, all the while gesturing in a very animated way. Of course, I didn’t understand a single thing she was saying (nor did Jack), but I saw that the porch light just outside our bedroom window had a swarm of termites flying around it (a very familiar phenomenon to anyone from Hawai’i, during certain warm, windless evenings). Even though I had no clue what she was saying, I had a pretty good hunch she was letting us know that it was going to be a “termite night”, and we should keep our bedroom window closed (we had been keeping it open to allow a cool breeze through). My parents raised me to be polite, so as she went on for several minutes with the rapid Japanese soliloquy, I periodically blurted out one of the only two Japanese words I knew (“Hai“) along with a short mini-bow, to let her know I was (probably) understanding what she was trying to communicate.

The whole time Jack just stood there in awe, marveling at my ability to engage with this sweet elderly woman and carry on a detailed conversation for several continuous minutes. As the woman and I finished our “conversation”, I uttered the other of the only two Japanese words I knew (“Arigatō“), then headed through the front door and up the stairs to our bedroom. With Jack right behind me, he asked “What was that all about?”. I said, “Oh, she was just explaining that it’s going to be a termite night tonight, and because that light is right outside our window, she closed our bedroom window to keep them out. She also recommended that we keep the window closed tonight, even if it’s a bit warm.” (Of course I was embellishing pretty heavily, but I’m pretty sure that I was accurately conveying her basic message.)

From just behind me as we both walked up the stairs, Jack said (in a tone that conveyed how impressed he was), “Wow — I had no idea you can speak Japanese!”, to which I replied “Oh, no — I don’t speak a word of it.”

A moment after I said this, I heard a small thump behind me on the stairs and I turned to see Jack had sat down, mid flight, doubled over with his forehead in is hand, mouth open, with not a sound emerging. For a brief moment I thought he was having a stroke or maybe bent or having a heart attack or something, but when he was finally able to draw a breath, he let out the loudest and most intense belly-laugh I had ever heard come from him, before or since! It was the kind of unbridled laughter that is extremely contagious. It took him a couple of minutes to regain his composure, before he finally had the strength to say, “You mean you were just pretending to chat with her? You certainly had me fooled!”

I don’t know why my little ruse that day hit Jack’s “funny bone” (as he liked to call it) so perfectly, but I often think of that moment of pure, intense joy coming from a man who so often made me laugh out loud with his dry wit and off-color jokes and limericks. We also continued to laugh about it for the rest of the expedition, because from that day forward, she would regale us every morning at breakfast and every evening when we returned from diving with long descriptions of … who knows what (certainly neither Jack nor I) — evidently being under the impression herself that I spoke fluent Japanese. “Hai“, I would say periodically as she spoke to us. And then, as she wrapped it up and headed back into the kitchen each morning or back to tending to the garden in front of the house each evening, I would dutifully bid her, “Arigatō!”.

Below is a photo I took during one of our trips to the Ogasawara Islands, showing Jack (sitting), John Earle (standing), and Johnson Kimura (at the helm).

Almost 30 years …. that is how long I have known Jack …. I have I had the pleasure of calling him friend before I worked on fishes, when I worked on fishes, and long after I gave up on fishes. Through so many events, he has always been a good friend. Always helpful, always curious, always wanting to do more. He is a character that comes along once in a long lifetime – a man imbued with immense passion and drive – an almost singular drive to go where few or none have gone before – to find, to see and to know as many fish as he could … He was a scientist par excellence yes, but he was more than that. He was a role model and a teacher for so many. He showed what could be done if one’s passion is not corrupted. Jack was a “madman” …. He would go to every length to catch a fish … whatever it took … but that same “madness” also produced fabulous results. Madness after all, is merely the consequence of being “affected with a high degree of intellectual independence” according to Ambrose Bierce …. Jack was all that and more. The mountains of discoveries he made will live on. Beyond his mortality. Many of us once believed he was immortal. We used to have a standing joke that he is protected by the Sea Gods because he was too valuable to be lost. At the end – we were half-right – he was irreplaceable – so Poseidon and Father Time claimed him for themselves. Good bye old friend – you will be remembered and you will be missed. One less “madman” to make this mad world of ours more human and liveable.

Dinner with Jack and Richard as well as Charles Fransen (Naturalis, Leiden), during the sidelines of a crustacean meeting in Honolulu (5 June 2011)

I have known and corresponded with Jack since my graduate student days, but only published one short paper with him. As all have said, he was always always gracious and generous in his correspondence and personal interactions. He helped me with several taxonomic problems, and I always appreciated his reticence to change classifications. Jack rarely looked at the osteology of fishes, but he seemed to appreciate at least some of my suggestions about relationships based on that evidence. As for molecular data, on the other hand, he firmly stood his ground, e.g., for Serranidae. In recent years he had encouraged me to organize a “movement” in that regard, but I felt it was a losing battle. Two of my favorite “Jack” stories have already been told – what it took to stump him by Pat Colin – Protanguilla – and the “walking dead” experience following our field trip to Rotuma by Jeff Williams. Wayne Starnes also mentioned our tennis playing and Jack’s skill. He was a fierce, but courteous competitor, and that carried into Ping Pong. When Jeff, Vic and I stayed with Jack and Helen after his doctor had shot us up for our various infections., the conversation soon turned to pin pong, and I found myself downstairs, paddle in hand. I made the mistake of beating Jack in the first game and soon realized that we would not stop playing until he beat me! I’m not sure how many games that took, but we laughed at the fact that Jack would always be able to say, “The last time I played ping pong with Dave Johnson, I beat him!”
Condolences to Helen and the family, and Safe Passage, Jack. We will miss you always

Here’s photo 1 from the previous post: Jack on the beach near Salalah, Oman, February 1993. (It had failed to upload)

John E. “Jack” Randall has reached the end of a groundbreaking and fulfilling career as a marine biologist. His career spanned from the time when Marine Biology was in its infancy to the current day when it is a sought-after career and a highly prized field of scientific inquiry. The past 67 years that we have been privileged to collaborate have been inspirational. He was a close friend, and valued colleague, It has been a distinct privilege and a pleasure to have been associated with Jack and his wife Helen.

Jack grew up on the coast of California and developed an overwhelming curiosity and desire to know all about the biology of marine animals, particularly the fish that lived in the near shore environment. Jack arrived in Hawaii on a boat that he had sailed, with an inexperienced all girl volunteer crew, from California to Hawaii. He was lucky enough to meet Helen here and, when I first met them in 1953, the two of them were docked in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor and Jack was working on his later degrees.

Jack Randall’s underwater observations were legendary. In his career he spent more hours underwater observing than most of us spend in a classroom in our whole lives! Jack was truly a Man-for-All-Seasons. He could go on for hours telling of his experiences throughout the world–all with the central theme of fish.

Jack had a passion for his work, and an unbelievable work ethic. He was possibly motivated somewhat by his mentor, William Alonzo Gosline, but I believe that Jack was self motivated as well. I learned more about the marine environment from Jack than I did from all of the professionals I encountered in my lifetime.

Jack was a keen observer, even though he suffered from poor eyesight and, as time went on, he had difficulty seeing underwater. His solution was to develop and construct his own diving mask complete with corrective lenses.

There was never a conversation with Jack, regardless of the original intent, that did not become a fascinating discussion of the marine environment peppered with his experiences and examples from hundreds of locations throughout the world. Although his principle focus was fish taxonomy, he included all aspects of his experience, with remarks about the behavior of the fish in question, their food habits, parasites, mating behavior, color patterns, and interaction with other fish and invertebrates.

Jack had an outstanding relationship with his family. His wife Helen was supportive in all of Jack’s activities; his daughter Lori was also most helpful in managing the fish reference collection at the Bishop Museum and thus allowing Jack to continue to pursue his work from home during these last few years.

Jack expanded his work to include taxonomic and ecological studies that involved all families of tropical marine fish in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. His lifetime record is prodigious, and based largely on collections and observations that he personally made throughout the world. It is noteworthy that much of his taxonomic research is based on his own collections of specimens and recorded with a photographic process that he developed over the years. Diving with Jack was often a trial of endurance and patience. Many a diving partner was exhausted trying to keep up with an older Jack Randall. The science always came first. Post dive activities like photography, preservation of specimens, etc. always came before personal comforts like eating, showering or sleeping,. But that was the Jack Randall that I knew: rigourous, inspiring, adventuresome, fascinating, and a good friend. Jack was an inspiration to everyone he encountered. He was truly a legend in his own time, and he will be greatly missed!

Aloha, Jack– thanks for the lifetime inspiration.

Jack was a popular friend of the South African marine science community and paid a number of visits over the years. He was a fiendish diver and an expert with the Hawaiian sling with which he could collect the smallest of specimens. He did so with great care, so as not to damage the specimen. His scuba diving skills were legendary: he had his own personal decompression tables– which would give him a few more safe minutes of downtime. It was always an experience to assist Jack on a dive. Before entering the water, Jack would hand you a bunch of harpoons of different sizes. Once in the water Jack would ask you to carry his bevy of harpoons. No sooner was he lined up to take a shot – when the fish moved with Jack in hot pursuit frantically gesticulating his need for another spear size…all of that whilst swimming at great speed with absurdly large fins. Exhausting!
Jack and Helen undertook several fish surveys in South Africa often accompanied by Margaret Smith and several ORI staff. These were fine expeditions and those of us who were privileged to partake in these surveys greatly appreciated his expertise – which he shared freely.
His photographic skills were an institution. The thousands of Kodachrome slides, that was his life’s record, were stored in a bank of frost free fridges at the Museum, as recommended by Kodak to assure long lasting quality. Jack was self-critical. I would take him to collect his newly processed slides from Kodak, always an event with apprehension. But then, to my horror, he would discard most on the floor of my Landrover. Those ‘duds’ were often recovered and now reside in the ORI collection. Jack was generous to a fault. He was always ready to assist in commenting wisely on a draft paper and he was always prepared to loan his photographs to enhance the quality of a publication prepared by other authors.
Just before you took Jack too seriously as an academic, he would reveal one of his other passions: limericks! He would recite endless numbers of these excellent little poems – deep into the night, with his friends in stitches.
Jack’s impact is certain to continue. Notable will be his four chapters in the forthcoming set of West Indian Ocean fishes: Labridae, Scaridae, Holocentridae and Mullidae.
Thank you Helen, Lori, Rodney, Sandy and Sean for sharing your dad and grandad with us.
Aloha! Jack – you are missed but never forgotten!

In September 1994, I joined the Fisheries Research Centre (Sabah Department of Fisheries), and from the intense field samplings discovered oh so many fishes… the biodiversity (!), and soon after, John Randall – through his books and his many fish papers. I have never met him in person, but have always held his works in high regard.

Farewell to a Science Giant! Deepest condolences from my family to his wife and family.

My name is Bob Iversen and I live in Melbourne, Australia. From 1950 until 1994 I lived in Hawaii and in Australia from 1994 until 2020. I was a mature age graduate student in zoology from 1954 to 1956 at the University of Hawaii and that is where I met Jack Randall. We had adjoining offices in a left over World War II office building. Jack helped out a bit when I was in the ichthyologist course under Dr. Bill Gosline. I was only a graduate student until 1956 when I went to work for the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The BCF research vessels went all over the tropical Pacific Ocean. One cruise I was on in 1957 stopped off in Papeete for some R & R and to meet Jack Randall and Vernon Brock, then the Director of the Hawaii State Division of Fish and Game. They had been over at Moorea collecting snappers for introduction into Hawaii. The next thing I knew Jack and Vernon Brock were on the R/V Hugh M. Smith making arrangements to place their catches in the Smith’s live baitwell (the baitwell was empty of the fish and ready to receive the snappers). My job was to handle the dip nets with the snappers in them. I did this and the snappers made it back to Hawaii and were dumped overboard where they happily took up residence and began to reproduce.
Now comes my Jack Randall story, After we had completed transferring the fish from Jack’s boat, Jack approached me and asked if I would ride ‘shotgun’ on him when he was scuba diving down amongst some big corals with a lot of fish that he wanted to photograph. I said no way – how was I going to see you when you disappear among all the corals. No problem, said Jack. You will be on he surface watching my bubbles as I swim below them. Okay? he said. I said okay and the two of us went in the water. It wasn’t more than ten minutes, maybe less when I lost track of Jack’s bubbles. I looked left and right and even dove down eight or ten feet and looked sideways under the corals. ‘Jack, where the hell are you?’ I said to myself. I looked around but no bubbles. Finally, I had to say to myself ‘Holy shit, I’ve lost Jack! How am I going to explain this? What am I going to tell Helen?’ So I took my flippers off and started walking towards the Hugh M. Smith. I hadn’t gone very far and there he was – as big as life. He had an explanation
Where Jack went professionally after our little ‘bubble’ escapade I don’t know. Together with Dr. Phil Helfrich I used visit with Jack occasionally during the last 10 years of his life. Jack knew everybody in fish taxonomy and had lots of anecdotes about them.

by Bob Iversen, May 10, 2020, Melbourne, Australia

I was a little surprized and sad that so few comments were posted on the Coral List, but to see here so many tributes to Jack is truly reassuring and make my eyes wet as reading many of these testimonies reminds me of who Jack was and the numerous great moments we had together. Like many of us I could write pages of stories about Jack. What was very nice with Jack is that he paid attention to you, he made you feel like you were a unique person. Being in the field with Jack was not only a continuous source for learning, but also superbe good time, with all kinds of stories, true or not, but always with a bit of humor so characteristic of Jack. He had always time to answer my mails or messages, and one day I asked him how he could stay at level with the huge number of messages he was receiving, he told me that I should think of the person who is sending the request, if that person was in front of me, would I turn my head around and ignore the question ?
In French we say “Personne n’est irremplaçable, mais chacun de nous est unique” (which translate roughly as “nobody is irreplaceable, but everyone of us is unique”), but I think that Jack is one of the few who is irreplaceable.and for certain more than unique.

I spoke with Jack a few times at ASIH meetings and corresponded with him about our surgeonfish work. What I remember most is his breadth of curiosity and his modest, sharing, gracious manner when dealing with students and colleagues. The impact of his systematic and taxonomic work is obvious, but his methods for photography of fresh specimens literally changed the nature of images common to ichthyological publications. He has given us all much to live up to.

I have been struggling to find meaningful words to contribute. Jack was always kind and enthusiastic. Around 1973 he welcomed me as young helper at the museum while I was still in high school. He took me on spectacular trips, introduced me to life-long friends and exposed me to the world. He taught me more than a bit about diving. He always encouraged me in my pursuits, even when it was evident my enthusiasm for ichthyology far eclipsed my talent. He was a giant in my life; more than words can capture.

Here is a photo of Jack from Manado in 1978.

Jack was a wonderful man who had an extraordinary life.

I only had the pleasure of meeting him in person a few times, but we had quite a steady correspondence over several decades. Of course, he was legendary for always responding to letters and then emails.

When first starting out as a graduate student in marine ecology, I relied heavily on some of Jack’s now classic papers and books, including Caribbean Reef Fishes. And his Food Habits of Reef Fishes of the West Indies is one of my favorites of all time—I use it often even now. It is amazingly comprehensive.

As someone who has lived on St. John for so many years, I have valued Jack’s incredible contributions to the ecology of the Virgin Islands. He and Helen published many papers when they were living here from 1959 to 1961. He and Robert Schroeder were so impressed with the reefs around Buck Island, St. Croix, that they recommended the area be protected under the National Park Service. Soon after, President Kennedy established it as Buck Island Reef National Monument. Robert Schroeder’s book Something Rich and Strange is a wonderful, entertaining account of many of the adventures he and Jack had in the early days in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida.

While snorkeling in the mangroves and coral reefs around St. John, I occasionally have come across bizarre or rare fish (a Sargassum Pipefish, Unicorn Filefish), fish in unusual places (Sargassum Frogfish and Balloonfish in mangrove prop roots), or fish doing unusual things (Scrawled Filefish nipping at sea fans and fire coral). I always knew that if I contacted Jack he would happily identify the fish or tell me more about what it was doing—and he always did.

I do not know if Jack grew to like his computer, but I doubt it. He resisted switching to a computer from his typewriter until one day the issue was forced when he arrived in his office to find a computer on his desk and the typewriter gone. He sent me a cartoon drawing showing someone using a sledgehammer to “crash” a computer. A few months ago he told he that his “computer decided which of his email messages it was going to keep”.

I was still learning from him.

My sincerest condolences to Helen and the rest of his family, as well as to countless others whose lives he touched.

I first met Jack some 25 years ago, but our work seldom intersected given my predilection for aquatic creatures of the shelled rather than scaly kind. Even so, his energy and enthusiasm for marine discovery was ever present and he was always generous in answering any questions I tossed him. In 2001, we had a chance to work together on a giant Indonesian mantis shrimp, captured with the help of Mark Erdmann — I like to think it as doing my bit to tempt Jack over to the ‘dark side’, but alas, that would never be possible!

With so many new discoveries over such a long career, Jack will remain an inspiration for a long time to come.

Jack, you’ll be missed.

First dive with Jack: a day to remember
As I mentioned in my first instalment above, I met Jack in Jerusalem in 1974 and agreed to be his diving assistant. We went down to the Marine Lab (now the Interuniversity Institute) in Eilat, it was early September and still very hot at the Red Sea. We spent the day getting Jack set up in the lab, rigging up his photographic apparatus, painting wooden boards in his signature black and green and checking that the flashes fired. He also checked his new Ikelite housing, Nikon F camera and strobes and all worked fine. The next morning we went diving off the north corner of the lab fence line (left of the ponds in the photo). It is an area without coral and it drops down along a steep slope of coral rubble. Jack took off carrying the camera and his Hawaiian sling. I carried the diving bag and his powerhead. He stopped his descent at 50 m and followed the contour of the slope to a relatively flat area with some scattered small rocks. Suddenly he turned, handed me the camera and pointed to a small elongate fish with dark stripes on the body. He then chased the fish and speared it with an accurate shot that penetrated only one side of its body. As he was putting the captured fish in a jar I had pulled out of the bag he looked at me with his eyes showing a big grin, he was very happy. By the end of the dive he was even happier because while decompressing he picked up a shrimp goby he didn’t recognize. Back in the lab the dark stripes of the fish turned into bright red. While preparing the fish for photography Jack said he had known that the stripes were red and he believed that both fish he had caught could be new species. If I remember correctly, David Friedman, the director of Coral World who had seen the striped fish while diving previously and hadn’t recognised it, had written Jack about this fish before he came to Israel. Needless to say, as a rookie I was impressed by this experience. While the goby did turn out to be a new species of Amblyeleotris, the striped fish wasn’t, it was identified as Bodianus opercularis.
While we were processing the two fish in the lab there was a shark attack on North Beach, where the hotels are. A young German female tourist had been badly bitten on her arm and again on her thigh while being pulled out of the water by two vacationing soldiers who were nearby in a small boat. Two days later local fishermen caught a Mako shark in the same area. I don’t remember any more how Jack got involved, but we ended up going to the hospital and talking to the surgeon who had operated on the tourist. Jack agreed to determine whether the captured Mako was the culprit and I was sent shopping for material for making a mould of the tourist’s thigh. Jack photographed the shark then we cut off its head and went back to the lab, made the mould, fitted it into the shark’s mouth more or less to the level of the wound on the tourist’s leg. While I was holding the mould Jack closed the mouth of the shark in a gentle bite. The teeth marks on the mould were perfect. The next day he took the mould to the hospital and confirmed that this was the shark that attacked the tourist by comparing it to the cuts on the woman’s leg. Jack later described this incident in a scientific paper.
This was a real Jack Randall experience, and I was hooked!

The Marine Lab in Eilat as it was in the early 1980s (photo by Arik Diamant)

Bruce Carlson shared with me some more images from the 1993 Solomon Islands trip with Jack and others. Among his finds was the image just now added to Bruce’s post of April 30^th, depicting the infamous slate he wrote to get Jack out of the water on his final dive on that trip.

Also among those images Bruce shared were a pair of photos of Jack and me from that same trip that emphasize what I tried to convey in my own post of May 6^th, describing Jack’s ubiquitous sense of humor. I’ve posted these images below, and I think they speak for themselves….

I never had the pleasure (or perhaps I should say challenge) of diving with Jack, but I was lucky enough to meet him and even collect a few fish for him while I was in Papua New Guinea. Not only was he a giant in the world of ichthyology, but a truly nice and decent person.

Deepest condolences to Helen and the family.

In about 1987 I sailed into Madang Harbour on my 37’ steel yacht and discovered that Madang Harbour was not a good anchorage and I was informed that there was a much better place a little to the north at the Christensen Resort, so I picked up anchor and headed there.

The Christensen Resort was just crazy, in the nicest sense of the word. Apparently, an American billionaire had passed away and he had left money to create the best marine research facility in the world, and the place was brimming with enthusiastic scientists who were doing research into the minutiae of fish guts etc. I have no idea; they were simply wonderful people whom I admired and every night there was a dinner and I had the privilege of sitting down with these people for the evening meal.

Jack Randal was one of those people, and we struck up a friendship. He was an engaging American who had many wonderful stories that left us awe. I will tell you only one as it affected me greatly; while Jack was researching in the Red Sea he was down in the ocean doing what marine researchers do, and along came a Tiger shark. Jack explained the warning signs of Tiger sharks when they are aggressive; they arch their backs, they drop their lateral fins (or whatever they are called) and they start to circle. Well this shark did exactly this Jack, and Jack calmly put a shot gun shell into his spear gun just as the shark came at Jack to kill. The shark lost.

I swear; the next day I went scuba diving on a reef just off Madang and as I fell into the sea from my rubber dinghy, and turned, I was looking at a 5M Tiger shark directly below me. I was in about 7 M of water, so it felt as I had landed on the shark’s back. That is only time in my life that I managed to jump into a rubber dinghy with all of my dive gear on. Impressive how a 5M Tiger shark gives one motivation.

Jack always said; whenever he saw a Tiger shark he got out of the water, because even if the shark was only 1M long it probably has a mother nearby.

That was one tale of many. Did you hear about the moray eel that attacked Jack and he used his elbow to stop the bite? That was a good one. (As Jack explained, when a Moray eel bites he is most weak when his jaw is fully flexed, so if you can stick you elbow in the eel’s mouth he can do less harm). Oh Jack!

I dived with Jack a lot of times while I was looking for dinner and Jack was doing what Jack did; science.

I gave Jack a nick name; Two Scoops, as he always had two scoops of ice cream and he was the embodiment of health, so it seemed ironic.

Some of the other scientists would whisper to me; “That’s Jack Randal…” he was royalty. Jack was just a mate, and great friend for the little time I got to be in his presence. Even today I think of him. God bless. He left the world a better place.

John Randall,

I never met Jack in person. But looking at the very long list of friends that replied on Remembering Jack Randall I feel we had an extra strong connection .,being a tech diver we learnt about Pyle Stops and enjoyed Dr. Richard Pyle’s seminars on CCR to find new fish species down at extreme depths beyond 200 M.
However In the early 1980’s my long life friend Hagen Schmidt helped Jack collect fish samples in Jeddah and the samples were photographed in Hagen’s kitchen for Dr. John E. Randall’s publication Red Sea Reef Fishes book.
During this beautiful time period I dived and photographed the reefs of Jeddah when pristine coral reefs were abundant and unexplored .

Hagen Schmidt introduced me to Jack .My passion, motivation and satisfaction increased tremendously as Jack provided me with a shopping list of creatures that needed in situ imaging and sampling for his papers and publications .
Jack was very generous with his time and information . I found species that needed identification. In the event he did not have the information he then introduced me to his former students and colleagues .
In North Obhur Jeddah Municipality on Jack’s Birthday 22nd of May 2018 we dedicated a dive day to our master and friend.. I had the pleasure and privilege to dive with Sergey Bogorodsky, the author of the upcoming comprehensive Red Sea Fish Species book.

On this day we found many species described by Jack .Sergey even found a new species of Electric ray yet to be collected and described !
Jack told me that he dived until the age of 87/88 !!! That’s encouraging to hear for us nitrogen junkies.

Jack always replied to all my mail within 24 hours, myself three decades younger having a struggle to do.We are grateful to Jack’s wife Helen for her help and assistance with Jack’s replies .
I still have Jack’s shopping list and keep searching to get these creatures captured on camera .
Let’s celebrate the fantastic life of the legendary Jack Randall .

Dr. Randall, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”! I will always remember the first and special day you greeted me at your Bishop Museum. You made me feel very comfortable cause you were wearing a cute “nemo” T-shirt. I thank you for spending time to look over Darrell Takaoka’s fish collection notes with your sweet daughter Lori, Darrell’s good friend Arnold and me. Also, so nice of you to have climbed a ladder just to show me the Kuhlia Zenura that Darrell caught in 1996 with a hand net. Today, Darrell wants to give back to you to enjoy his “Santana” guitar playing (while eating your ice cream) to have a wonderful, relaxed, and peaceful birthday. You will always be remembered with lots of super love from the Marine World–Dr. John Ernest “Jack” Randall, Jr. our GIANT!!!

Lori, Dr. Randall who is looking at Darrell’s notes with Arnold Suzumoto, & Lorraine Takaoka at the Bishop Museum.

Back in the mid to late 1990’s I was taking small groups of experienced divers into the islands of Indonesia north and east of East Timor. These islands were known then as the “Forgotten Islands”. It was among these islands H.G. Wells had set The Island of Doctor Moreau so there was that to look forward to besides the diving.

The Komodo Plus was not a luxurious dive boat by todays standards. It was made of local ironwood in South Kalimantan and was a slow coastal freighter with a galley that required a small agile cook.

We all slept below in the modified cargo hold. There were eight compartments with two bunks, four on either side of a planked gangway. Privacy was supplied by thin walls fore and aft and a curtain fronting the gangway. We each had a compartment with a spare bunk for gear, or in Jack’s case an armory of fish spears and a processing lab.

On two previous trips on this same boat small personal items had gone missing. Money in several currencies, a toothbrush, a woman’s bathing suit bottom and a pair of women’s underwear among other items. The theft of the money or even the toothbrush we could understand but the items of women’s clothing began to raise concerns.

The handful of circumstantial evidence pointed to a poor lonely sailor. One was designated by the captain and put ashore in Maumere, Flores. He was wrong.

A year later, when Jack joined us for the first time, I was concerned for Jack about the shortcomings of the boat, but to my relief, Jack was happy and seemed comfortable from the start.

Two days later Jack’s dentures disappeared.

When the boat entered Alor’s deep slender Kalabahi Bay we all climbed onto the roof to watch for Mola Mola on the surface and dolphins chasing tuna to fishermen in dug out canoes.

Jack stayed below without a word to anyone and began lifting the loose planks of the gangway floor then climbed into the dry bilge with a flashlight. When I came down to check on him there were boards stacked all along the gangway and Jack standing in the dry bilge. “You have a rat.” he smiled as he handed up his dentures, the underwear, the bikini bottom and some foreign currency. No toothbrush.

Jack’s book signing at the Waikiki Aquarium, 2007.

These three photos were taken at the Fish Section, British Museum (Natural History) [now The Natural History Museum, London), 21 December 1981.

The New York Times has just published a very nice obituary of Jack. I am accurately quoted in the article (I checked my emails and confirmed), but on one of those quotes I provided incorrect information (Gerry has far more new species to his credit than my mis-spoken quote suggests!! Sorry, Gerry!)

Jack invited me to visit him when he was at the University of Puerto Rico and I was a graduate student in the early 1960’s. He was very helpful getting me acquainted with some of the “Geminate species” of Panamanian fishes I wanted to examine for my thesis.

Invited to stay at his house, he inquired the first morning about how I had slept. “Quite comfortably, at least until a rooster held forth under the building around 4AM. “

Jack allowed as how the roosters bothered him too. They were fighting cocks belonging to the owner of the neighboring house who was also the landlord of the house Jack was renting.

Jack told me that he had solved the problem for a while with a bow and arrow, and then cooking the offending roosters to conceal the evidence. This worked nicely until one victim managed to run home still transfixed by an arrow. Jack had to give the bow to his landlord as good faith promise to stop dining on the fighting cocks.

Jack left Marine Biology a richer science and the world a poorer place.

To follow up, I’d like to tell a little family story that occurred during Rich’s PhD defense. Our mother Leilani had kept a family secret close to her vest for 75+ years, that her father (our grandfather) was not who we all thought he was, Dr. Harry Holmann (a cool dude in his own right; look up the Alice Ball story). Instead it was Edwin Bryan, well-respected Pacific geographer and Jack-of-all trades at the Bishop Museum for over 50 years (sound familiar, actually twice?). Our mother chose to tell us a day before Rich’s defense and also told Jack Randall so that he could announce the news when introducing Rich. When he did, there was a loud and audible gasp in the room full of friends and researchers. Jack of course pulled off his end of it flawlessly, as our mother trusted he would, and why she chose this moment and Jack to share this bit of family history.

I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him but have learned a whole lot from his books and papers. I’ve always admired him and his work. A brilliant and legendary ichthyologist.

I met Jack on 2011 when I visited BPBM, Hawaii. We discussed many about Pempheris, and it was a wonderful experience for a beginning researcher. Unfortunately, we could not reach to a same goal, but his passion still burning in my mind. He is a true legend. He is a true giant. I know his DNA are already in all of the ichthyologists in the world.

Reader’s of the accounts of Jack’s rich life might jump to a conclusion that, in order to photograph, collect and name all those fishes, Jack must have spent all of his time studying them, probably was reclusive and solitary. Ha! Jack’s life was filled with friendships— he made friends easily, valued them, and cared for them.

Often, in airports awaiting to return from a collecting trip, we would be off to get a beer and pass Jack writing postcards to other friends and colleagues, reporting about the trip, and asking about their work. Jack’s hand-writing was tiny, but readable and a lot of info was on each postcard. We beer drinkers swallowed a little guiltily thinking of the dozen cards on the seat by Jack, as he wrote another one.

As told throughout this memorial site, Jack influenced many careers. As long as his taxonomic list is, I’m sure it is far surpassed by the names of friends, colleagues and mentees whose professional lives were made better by his help and support.

He certainly improved mine: he was partly responsible for my getting the best job I have ever had— working at the UH’s Waikiki Aquarium. Once I was on the job, Jack continued to help in many ways, most notably by introducing a young Michigander Peace Corps volunteer, posted in Fiji, with an interest in fishes and coral reefs— Bruce Carlson. Jack and Bruce made the Aquarium a much better place for fishes— and people. Thanks, Jack!

The Aquarium occasionally had to make compromises with Jack, however: a rare fish would come to the Aquarium, potentially a new species. We knew it was rare and novel because Jack would come to check it out (usually with a jar). “I need that fish!” he would say. “Wait ,wait— we need to get that fish on display so visitors can see it.”
“Well, OK, how about for a week?” Seven days later Jack was back (with a jar) and the fish would go off to Bishop Museum to recline, perhaps forever, in a jar of liquid that was not sea-water, sharing space with a carefully written label in Jack’s hand, stating its new scientific name and crediting the collector and the Aquarium.

We all know Jack was much more than The Champion Taxonomist. He researched and published on many subjects— behavior, ecology, public health (e.g., ciguatera). Jack was an early and influential proponent of marine reserves in Hawaii and elsewhere.

And of course, he was a loving father and husband—very cognizant and acknowledging of the critical collaboration of dear Helen.

Aloha Jack— and thank you for everything….

My first encounter with Jack was in 1981 at Enewetak Atoll when HURL conducted 3 months of dives in and around the Atoll. Jack was there doing fish studies and one moonlit night I was out on the reef and this apparition came out of the dark in scuba gear from the ocean side of the reef. It was Jack coming back from a solo dive and he was holding something in his mask with a look like he had just discovered Spanish treasure. It was a mass of fish eggs he had discovered and having no way to collect them he had put them in his mask and continued the dive with them sloshing around on his face.
In 1983 during 3 months of submersible dives at Johnston Atoll, I was getting Makalii ready to dive while Jack mixed a bucket of Rotenone to carry down on Makalii. He started climbing in the sub with rotenone all over his arms, legs, shirt, and shorts. I said ”Jack, you can’t get in here like that” He didn’t miss a beat and washed the rotenone off his arms and legs and ditched his shirt and shorts and did the dive in his skivvies.
Jack was the real deal. His enthusiasm was infectious. I loved diving with him.

Rich Pyle and his wife Lisa introduced me to Jack Randall at a birthday party celebrating his 80th(?). I knee his books and photos and used them diving all over the Pacific, hoping I might see the rare ones, but actually enjoying reading about what I had seen. Jack did something every scientist should try to achieve: He brought his clarity and insight to us all, Ichthyologist and interested laymen alike. By doing so, he enables us to understand the linkages in our world. Links not just between groups of fish, but to ourselves. I argued with Jack (and Rich) about the ability of genetic sequencing to tell us all we needed to know about these linkages. They (quickly and politely) persuaded me that behavior not genes is what is fascinating about all species. How true! Thank you Jack, Lisa and Rich, for re-grounding me in what is important in life.

I met Jack when I was a new grad student at UH in 2000. I was interested in studying whitetip reef sharks, and Jack had published a fantastic review of what was known about the species. I had spotted him on campus a couple of times but he kept eluding me. Even with an obvious hitch in his gait he was surprisingly fast! Finally one day I ran to catch up with him and introduced myself. Much to my surprise he invited me to his house a few days later where he spent over an hour telling me everything there was to know about whitetips, listening to my research ideas, and offering advice. It felt like I was a little kid and Jacques Cousteau had just pulled me into the TV with him. If Jack was interested in my ideas then surely they were worth chasing for a few (8!) years. This story is not an unusual one, as you can tell from the other comments here. But what an unusual man to be able to share his intellect and generosity with so many people. Aloha, Jack

The only time that I “dove” with Jack with only snorkling was 1968 in Guam. Acanthaster had just struck the reef and many of us were called out to witness this and, of course, a conference. Jack & I snorkeled out from the beach and he, of course, had his minispear. I had been doing some work on the purported “poison fang” blenny Meiacanthus atrodorsalis and we happened on a small group. Jack loaned me his minispear and I collected a few. Lacking a bag I carefully twisted their necks and stuffed them in my swim suit. Minutes later an intense pain came from my frontal area, an area where no man wants to feel that sort of intense pain. Not knowing what to expect we went back to the hotel and Jack, being Jack, said we should document the wound “just in case”. He set up his Rollie and lights and ran a series of shots of my unfortunately placed bites as the wound developed some interesting swelling and colors. I was hoping that no one would blunder into the room. Over the years Jack said, and I believed, that those photos were being preserved “just in case.” Thank goodness they have not appeared over the years as Facebook Porn or whatever. And I will thank you Rich to see to their destruction… Please!

Just uploading the second image of Jack with his camera rig.

Aloha and mahalo to the fish guy! You inspired fish nerds all over the world and even some of us invertebrate people. I knew Jack only from the Bishop Museum, but he had an aura about him that was welcoming and awe-inspiring! Hanging out in Ichthyology with Arnold and Lori, looking at the type collection in Ichthyology, his name was on almost every jar I examined. I used to wonder, “how is this even possible?” But then I realized this man dedicated his entire life to his passion. That’s how. He is an inspiration, and a shining light for all of us to see that following our hearts and passions can make a truly full and meaningful existence. Thank you Jack.

Jack, I’m really sorry to hear that you passed away.
I first met Jack when he came to Japan in 1992 for sampling. It was at the home of Dr. Hitoshi Ida, Jack’s longtime friend and my supervisor. After that, we accompanied his fish sampling tour for Chichijima of Bonin Islands. We continued to collect fish samples with hand nets from morning till night after taking underwater photographs of the target fish, for more than 10 days. I think Jack was already 67 or 68 at that time, and I was amazed at his physical strength and passion to continue the sampling every day. After the sampling, we then enjoyed a little Japanese sake. After the trip, our exchange via email continued. Especially when I was dispatched to Mauritius as a JICA expert from 1998 to2002, I was greatly assisted by him through on various advices on remote identification of coastal fish. After that, we were able to see each other again at the 2005 IPFC in Taipei. The photo is of that time. At that time also, I remember that I received various precious advice.
Jack, it was already 15 years ago. Somehow, we had little communication for the next 15 years. But I think you have had a great influence on my life.
Thank you for all the kindness you gave me.
May you rest in peace.

I first learned about Dr. Randall after graduating from Univ. of Miami in 1964 and getting my first job as a fisheries technician at UM Marine Institute, as it was called then. I had read many of Jack’s publications on fishes. Dr. Randall had predated my tenure at UM by a few years, then moving on to the Marine Institute in Puerto Rico for further research on his subsequent book on Caribbean fishes.
During my days at Miami I was being partially mentored at that time by Fred Berry from NOAA Tropical Atlantic Biological Laboratory, who in 1965 had taken an interest in my Sargassum fish collections from the Gulf Stream. My first publication was a very modest four page note published in Copeia on the unusual juvenile morphology of the filefishes Cantherhines that I had collected from Sargassum in the Gulf Stream. At some point, Fred Berry had apparently corresponded with Jack regarding my filefish note. I was dejected to hear that Jack had told Fred, referring to my note, “everybody knows that”! Fred thought that was a bit harsh at the time. I thought that wasn’t exactly auspicious start to my budding fish career. I felt a little better when Carl Hubbs sent me my first reprint request, most students today don’t know what that was, “please send me a copy of your interesting paper on Cantherhines – O.K., it was a little hyperbolic but I took it.
Little could I have imagined that five years later in 1972 while working on my dissertation at UNC Jack wrote me whether I would be interested in co-authoring a generic revision of Hoplolatilus. I was somewhat shocked, based upon what I thought his impression was of me earlier, and very delighted to have the opportunity to working with such an ichthyological icon. The Hoplolatilus project allowed me to appreciate what an inciteful, supportive, and hardworking scientist Dr. Randall was. Jack spent many hours with me, working on the MS, visiting museums, etc., to produce the best paper possible. I better got to appreciate more Jack’s generosity and supportiveness when I had the opportunity to talk with him later at length at various fish functions, and subsequently dive with him.
While diving with him on several occasions in the Philippines and in Belize, I was more than impressed with his focus, skill and tremendous diving endurance. He generally always dove deeper and longer than anyone on the boat. I had said to him don’t you think collecting fish at more than 50 meters by yourself on compressed air was a little risky, he emphatically said “no” !
I have learned so much more about Jack upon reading all the wonderful and great tributes to him by his many esteemed ichthyologists and friends.
Icons are rare, especially today, and should be given all the well-deserved accolades possible. Bon voyage my friend, we will all miss you dearly. Also, I would like to relay my belated condolences to Helen and the Randall family.

Jack diving and listening to music – Lord Howe Island 1973

Oilei!!! Richard, Helen, Dave Greenfield and all Jack’s friends!! Am so embarrassed that I’m only just posting (if I’m successful in posting!!) something in recognition of Jack now! But, honestly, I am a computer coelacanth who tried to send a message to Richard when I first received the news of Jack’s passing, and only tonight, when searching for Rich’s email address did I happen to open up the site, realize what it was and read all of your wonderful tributes to Jack! Anyway, as all of you has said so wonderfully and passionately, Jack was unique, there never was, and probably will never be anyone so passionate and selfless about fish, science, ethno-science, friendship, family, etc., and as so many of you have said, there has never been someone so lofty (of such depth!) who gave their time and attention to (and answered queries from) anyone who was interested in what he was doing or needed help or mentoring. I first met Jack, when I helped organise an NSF collecting trip with Jack, Dave Greenfield and others, in I think the early 1990s (?) during which we spent most nights at our favorite restaurant and bar with the team having a few Fiji Bitters and cementing our friendship! I had also known Mike Gawel when he was here, but at the time hadn’t met Jack . . as I’m sure I would have remembered. As with many of you he was the ultimate mentor, like a father that doted on anyone who was interested in finding or identifying a new and an old fish. There are only two scientists, who have ever been awarded an Honorary Phd (Doctorate) of The University of the South Pacific. All of the others have been Heads of State, mostly from the Pacific Islands, other famous people, including Indira Ghandi. These two scientists, who are in my mind, probably without doubt the two greatest field scientists in Pacific history (Darwin was good, but not as truly Pacific/Indo-Pacific), were Jack and Ray Fosberg, who was clearly the the land and plant Jack Randall of Micronesia and Polynesia, although not one of Rich’s grandparents, was probably more iconic than Edwin Bryan. As the person who nominated both of them for the honour, I really think that it might be the most important contribution that should be (but isn’t) included in my CV. Since first meeting Jack and Dave we have been in contact ever since. As with everyone else he met he engaged our families, my wife Konai and our kids Batiri and Baravi, who will forever remember when Jack and Helen took our whole family to Bubba Gumps, his favorite restaurant, which later became a family institution for us when we came to Hawai’i . . . second only to Duke’s!! Anyway, I will sign off and maybe post something a little more appropriate when I see if this gets through (?), but via this message I send both Konai and our family’s and USP’s condolences and thanks for having been part of Jack’s Pacific family to Helen and the family and all of our mutual friends who have loved and shared in the love of Jack for family, friends and fish!!! ‘Ofa atu and loloma levu yani Randy, Konai and USP P.S. Will search fro some old photos!!

I want to share a wonderful remembrance of Jack, which was written by Amy Roberts and published online in the St. John Source, and documents his time in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Thank you, Amy, for taking the time to capture Jack’s spirit so effectively!

Jack Randall. I got to know he passed away while writing some Notes for my Sons.
My condolences to his Wife and Daughter Loreen who was in my Class in Mayaquez Puerto Rico. Jack was great Personality and Friend of our family in Puerto Rico.
He actually taught me how to snorkel.. His knowledge about the OCEAN was incredible. I desperately wanted to study Marine Biology … but my Parents insisted I make a career as orthopedic Surgeon.

One of the many things I remember ..I was snorkeling outside a cage ..in Arecibo watching those incredible White Sharks… I was fascinated.. all of a sudden, Jack pulled me out of the water… I was not amused… he just turned around and pointed to the free ocean…4-5 Whites were actually in 6 foot deep water right behind me. Jack then showed me how to “behave” with …
And while snorkeling around Maldives that saved my life.
But… at least twice a Year I have to be in a Ocean.. and all three of my boys are “Fish fascinated”
Thank you Jack for really showing how to love an respect the Ocean.

From looking up something about Johnrandallia nigrirostris, I learned of Jack’s death. Following leads and threads, I quickly bumped into this memorial site set up by Richard Pyle. I knew of Jack’s enormous work in fish taxonomy, but was little aware before this site of the reach of Jack’s mentoring and touching of other people’s lives.
Jack was instrumental in naming a Pseudanthias after me. When Dr. Eugenie Clark and I were in Rowley Shoals in 1986, there was an anthias that was new to us that everyone there was calling Pseudanthias pleurotaenia, a fish we knew well. We both thought it was a new species and Genie said, “Jack is coming here soon. We’ll let him know. He’ll see if it’s new.” And he did, generously naming it Pseudanthias sheni.
I was lucky to meet Jack the next year on board the Lumba Lumba plying the Banda Sea. There I saw first hand the exacting process of photographing dead specimens, pinning out the fins on a complementary background, and coloring the specimen back to live colors. No one, of course, goes through that laborious process anymore, but there are identification benefits to a touched-up specimen versus live photos. Genie and I also helped Jack with collecting specimens from one coral head. That Jack was able to describe three new species from that one coral head alone is testament both to Jack’s knowledge and the fecundity of Indonesian waters.
In 1993 I photographed several Nemateleotris decora below 200 feet at Daedalus Reef, Red Sea, but I passed up taking a shot of Pseudanthias pleurotaenia since I had no idea it was rare there. These photos of N. decora became the basis for a range extension paper that Jack wrote up. More recently, 2013, Jack described this Nemateleotris as a new species, exquisita, with a range from Maritius, into the Red Sea, and east to Thailand.
Last but not least, whenever I or friends of mine questioned a fish’s identity in a photograph, I would call on Jack. Invariably, due to his breadth of knowledge of fish species, Jack would identify the fish or at least lead us into the right neighborhood.
Jack’s passing will be a loss that I and the ichthyological community will sadly have to bear.

I wrote a nice memorial to Jack two years ago, but apparently never hit the post button.

Jack was the reason I went to the Univeristy of Hawaii and he took on the role of my major professor and mentor. He helped me find an initial place to live (with the former director of HIMB), helped me with a more permanent place to live on Coconut Island, and provided me with many opportunities over the years.

Every Sunday morning was spent playing tennis with a very competitive Jack and two others he played with regularly. I was the young one… the others were over 65 (at least). That said, Jack took no small amount of pleasure in running me all over the court with his controlled and well-placed shots. He had limited mobility due to a neuropathy effecting his feet, but that made little difference and he was usually on the winning side no matter what the combination of players.

He introduced me to any number of ichthyologists that would come through Hawaii to spend time at the Bishop Museum or just in transit to other destinations heading east or west. I was in constant awe of the titans of ichthyology that he introduced me to. Often it was a someones house and everyone brought something to eat and then there would be a slide show or video of someone’s trip and the fish encountered. Rich Pyle and I would be naming the fish as they popped up (Rich much better than I) but what great memories!

Jack had the best little library set up in his house. You had to pass through the bedroom to get there and he had another bed in there for working late. Books and organized literature on four walls and his own card catalog system for keeping track of species, authors, and publications.

He was amazing in the water and nothing slowed him down. When walking was difficult, he would go to the pool in Kaneohe and swim laps like a fish. He would push the limits of what he was “allowed” to do with diving. He had long lived parents and I remember one grant he was working on when he was in his 80’s and he was including in there that he had longevity in his line and that his age should not be a factor in the grant award.

I am so thankful for knowing Jack, having him as a mentor, and all the people I have come to know and remain friends with through Jack. Jack was the tops in his field, but also an incredibly thoughtful and good friend to so many people. My bookshelf is full of Jack’s books and I fondly think of the man behind them each time I pass them.

Swim on Jack….