Herbert Richard Axelrod (June 7, 1927 – May 15, 2017) was an American tropical fish expert, a publisher of pet books, and an entrepreneur. In 2005 he was sentenced in U.S. court to 18 months in prison for tax fraud. Early life Axelrod was born to a Jewish family in New Jersey, the son of immigrant parents from Russia. His father was a mathematics and violin teacher, and his mother was a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy. Aquatics and publishing While serving in an Army MASH unit in Korea, he wrote his book The Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes, which eventually sold more than one million copies. After returning from Korea, Axelrod earned a Ph.D. in biostatistics at New York University and started the magazine Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He wrote many other books on tropical fish and founded a publishing firm, TFH Publications (named for the magazine) that became the largest publisher of pet books in the world. TFH Publications was headquartered first in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then in Neptune, New Jersey. The New York Times has written that "his importance was undeniable. In an era before web forums and Google, collectors turned to Tropical Fish Hobbyist and Axelrod's dozens of books". In 1956, Leonard P. Schultz described the cardinal tetra, a popular aquarium fish, and gave it its scientific name, Paracheirodon axelrodi, which honors Axelrod. Although the fish had been discovered in Brazil in 1953 by Harald Sioli, a discus collector, Axelrod claimed that he had made the discovery himself during a steamboat trip on the Rio Negro, and he sent fish that he purchased from a dealer in New Jersey to the Smithsonian Institution, where the species was identified. In 1989, Axelrod donated his collection of fossil fish to the University of Guelph, which the university says is one of the largest donations by an individual to a Canadian university. The Axelrod Institute of Ichthyology at that university was named for him. The University of Guelph also named a lecture hall after him, the Axelrod Building, but in 2010 renamed it the Alexander Building, after Lincoln Alexander. In 1997 Axelrod sold TFH Publications to Central Garden & Pet Company of California for $70 million. The contract included potential payouts to Axelrod if TFH reached earnings targets after the sale. He sued under that provision, accusing Central Garden of suppressing earnings to avoid paying the extra