Use your location to explore nearby marine life, or choose an area on the map.
Live mode queries the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and iNaturalist for your selected area, using the date cutoff shown above the results. OBIS supplies the marine species checklist; iNaturalist supplies research-grade observations, common names, and openly licensed photographs.
“Recorded here” means the source contains records for this area. It does not mean a species will be present today or that you are likely to encounter it. Survey effort, visibility, habitat, and season all affect encounters. OBIS also incorporates some iNaturalist records; counts from the two sources can overlap and are not added together.
Live pins show a retrieved public observation location. The details identify its source and date. A species can appear in the list without a pin when no usable public location has loaded. Obscured or withheld locations, and locations with reported uncertainty greater than 10 km, are not plotted. A pin is not a dive site or an animal’s current position.
Results begin with 12 species ranked by source record count. You can load more, up to 60 per area. OBIS supplies up to 1,000 animal checklist taxa and up to six representative records per displayed species; these are not necessarily its newest records. iNaturalist supplies up to 500 taxon counts and 100 recent observation records. These are bounded queries, not a complete census. Empty results do not establish absence.
A month selection uses matching iNaturalist observations, with OBIS used to verify marine taxonomy. It does not infer a species’ overall seasonality. Activity filters use curated species profiles where available; otherwise they use supplied habitat or recorded depth. Unclassified species do not appear under a specific activity. A source’s recorded depth is not the species’ full or typical depth range.
Species references provide biological context independently of occurrence records. Labels distinguish published depth ranges, typical viewing depths, and shoreline or surface habitat zones. Where no species reference is available, we show habitat and depth from the retrieved records. Open a species profile to read the references and compare them with local evidence.
Photographs illustrate the species and may come from a different location. Each photograph retains its source and credit. Unavailable habitat, depth, seasonality, or photographs are identified as unavailable rather than invented.
The four featured regions begin with dated snapshots of verified public records. Live requests refresh those results in the background. The snapshot date shows when data was fetched, not when an animal was observed. If an update fails, available records remain visible with a notice. Other searches can reuse records from this visit; closing or reloading the page clears that in-memory search cache.
“Latest retrieved record” refers to the newest date in the returned sample, not necessarily the newest observation held by the provider. Missing details and encounter probabilities remain unestimated. The snapshots do not update on a schedule; their dates remain visible until a later site refresh.
The optional sample mode preserves the original 14-taxon demonstration across four regions. Its marker locations and encounter labels are illustrative and are never silently substituted for live records.
Location permission is optional. This page does not save your coordinates. Searching an area sends its bounds to OBIS and iNaturalist; map tiles reveal the displayed area to OpenStreetMap. A worldwide place search sends the place name you enter to Nominatim. Requests use no account credentials.
Map © OpenStreetMap contributors. Mapping interface: Leaflet, BSD-2-Clause. Occurrence and photograph credits appear with each species.
This regional list contains a dated snapshot of public records. Enable JavaScript to explore the map, change filters, and refresh observations.