Indian Ocean
Bordered by Africa, Asia and Australia, rich in coral reefs and temperate seaweed meadows.
- 🌊Red Sea
- 🪸Coral reef
- 🪸High seas / open water
- 🪸Kelp forest / seaweed meadow
- 🪸Mangroves
- 🌑Epipelagic zone
- 🌑Mesopelagic zone
- 🌑Bathypelagic zone
Giant carpet anemone
Heteractis magnifica
Giant carpet anemone
Host to many clownfish that are immune to its own sting, it can live for decades in the same spot without ever moving.
🌊 0–20 m
- ⚡ Can live for decades in the same spot without ever moving
- ⚡ Maintains a symbiosis with the clownfish, which in turn protects it from certain predators
Coelacanth
Latimeria chalumnae
Coelacanth
Believed extinct for 65 million years, alongside the dinosaurs, until its spectacular rediscovery in 1938 off South Africa.
🌊 150–700 m
- ⚡ Believed extinct for 65 million years until its rediscovery in 1938
- ⚡ Fleshy fins that move like limbs, close to the ancestor of the first land vertebrates
Leafy seadragon
Phycodurus eques
Leafy seadragon
A fish that looks exactly like a drifting piece of seaweed — the most spectacular camouflage in temperate marine wildlife.
🌊 3–50 m
- ⚡ Near-perfect camouflage mimicking the surrounding seaweed
- ⚡ The male carries and protects the eggs until they hatch
Giant moray
Gymnothorax javanicus
Giant moray
Often perceived as menacing because of its half-open mouth, it simply breathes that way — and hides a second, retractable jaw worthy of a science-fiction film.
🌊 0–50 m
- ⚡ Has a second, retractable jaw that shoots into its throat to seize prey
- ⚡ Sometimes hunts as a team with groupers, a rare inter-species cooperation among fish
Diadem sea urchin
Diadema setosum
Diadem sea urchin
Its long, thin black spines, able to break off and remain lodged in the skin, make it one of the sea urchins divers fear most, despite its essential ecological role.
🌊 0–40 m
- ⚡ Its entire body is light-sensitive, acting like one giant, distributed eye
- ⚡ Plays an essential role in controlling algae populations on coral reefs
Crocodilefish
Papilloculiceps longiceps
Crocodilefish
Elongated and flattened like a submerged log, it spends most of its time motionless on the sand, its bulging eyes the only clue to attentive divers of its presence.
🌊 1–100 m
- ⚡ Camouflage so perfect it is often mistaken for a piece of debris or a submerged log
- ⚡ Eyes able to move independently to scan its surroundings without moving
Sawfish
Pristis pristis
Sawfish
A sacred figure of the Dreamtime in several Aboriginal cultures of northern Australia, where its saw-shaped rostrum is said to have carved the course of certain rivers, it is today one of the most endangered fish families in the world.
🌊 0–40 m
- ⚡ Its rostrum acts as both a slashing weapon and an ultra-sensitive electrical radar
- ⚡ Can tolerate both salt and fresh water, sometimes travelling very far up rivers
Giant manta ray
Mobula birostris
Giant manta ray
The largest ray in the world, a peaceful filter feeder with a brain proportionally among the largest of all fish, able to recognise itself in a mirror in the laboratory.
🌊 0–1000 m
- ⚡ One of the few fish to pass a mirror self-recognition test in the laboratory
- ⚡ A brain proportionally among the largest of all fish
Whale shark
Rhincodon typus
Whale shark
The largest fish in the world, a peaceful filter feeder that can reach the size of a school bus while feeding almost exclusively on plankton.
🌊 0–1900 m
- ⚡ The largest fish in the world, able to exceed 18 metres in length
- ⚡ A spot pattern unique to each individual, like a fingerprint
Crown-of-thorns starfish
Acanthaster planci
Crown-of-thorns starfish
Able to devour an entire coral reef within months during massive outbreaks, it is also one of the few starfish with genuinely venomous spines.
🌊 0–30 m
- ⚡ Can regenerate a whole individual from a fragment of its body
- ⚡ Can devour an entire coral reef within months during a massive outbreak
Stonefish
Synanceia verrucosa
Stonefish
Considered the most venomous fish in the world, it blends perfectly with rocks and dead coral, making it nearly impossible to spot until it's too late.
🌊 0–30 m
- ⚡ Near-perfect camouflage, blending in with an algae-covered rock
- ⚡ One of the most powerful venoms known in any fish
Scalloped hammerhead shark
Sphyrna lewini
Scalloped hammerhead shark
Its hammer-shaped head, the cephalofoil, is an extraordinary biological radar, studded with electrical sensors able to detect prey buried in the sand.
🌊 0–80 m
- ⚡ Ultra-sensitive electroreception via ampullae of Lorenzini spread across its cephalofoil
- ⚡ Near-360° panoramic vision
Giant triton
Charonia tritonis
Giant triton
Named after Triton, the sea's messenger god in Greek mythology who blew a conch shell to calm or unleash the waves, this huge sea snail is also one of the few natural predators able to keep crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks in check on coral reefs.
🌊 0–30 m
- ⚡ One of the only natural predators able to keep devastating crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks in check
- ⚡ Its shell has served for millennia as a ceremonial wind instrument in many Pacific cultures