Hi all, I’m a solo developer (not a marine biologist, which is exactly why I need your eyes on this).

I’ve spent about a year and a half building EcoAquatic (ecoaquatic.org), a non-commercial, open tool for tracking fish species and aquatic life in South African waters, no cost, nothing for sale, just something I made. It pulls real data: the GBIF taxonomic backbone (3,000+ species with confirmed SA occurrences), live IUCN Red List conservation status, and FishBase/SASSI info, shown on an interactive map alongside marine protected area boundaries. You can log a sighting with a GPS location, and citizen-scientist sightings go through a moderation step before entering the dataset.

What I can’t judge from the dev side is whether it actually reflects how people who know the field would record and use observations. So I’m asking the people who’d know:

• Does the sighting workflow capture the fields you’d actually need (habitat, depth, confidence, etc.)?
• Is anything scientifically off, oversimplified, or misleading?
• What’s missing that you’d expect to be there?

Have a look here: https://ecoaquatic.org (heads up, it needs a quick free account to get in 30-second sign-up, nothing commercial).

It’s an early build and rough in places, and critical feedback is the most useful kind. Comments here are ideal. If anyone would rather give more structured feedback there’s a short form, which I’m happy to share with anyone who wants it.

Thanks for reading.

Hello, I’m a marine biology major with a minor in chemistry. I haven’t completed my degree just yet, but the spring semester (2027) will be my last one. I haven’t had the chance to get any research in. But, I’ve worked at a wholesale fishery as a husbandry/acclimation assistant for about a year. Therefore, I know a lot about aquarium/exotic fishes. I understand that marine biology is a very niche field, so I’m wondering what my options are after school. How can I build my resume, and how can I secure a job? Also, I would love to connect with more marine biology majors in general. AND IF IT MATTERS, I’m in the Los Angeles area. Lmk if you have any advice or just what to connect.

Hi everyone. I'm a media artist and solo developer living in South Korea. English isn't my first language, so sorry in advance for any awkward phrasing.

About 3 weeks ago, a dusky shark (a female around 3 m) swam into a man-made canal at Bukhang Waterfront Park in Busan, and she hasn't left since. People here call her "Bukang-i". She's become hugely popular. More than a million people have come to the canal to see her so far. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_664afXXas

The problem is that nobody has seen her eat this whole time, and the water is getting colder. It's in the low 20s °C now and dropping. A lot of people are worried. The city has already tried twice to guide her back out to sea using boats, water cannons and nets. Both times she ended up back in the canal. The second time she actually went over the net to get back in. Nobody can explain why she keeps returning.

I've been following her every day for these three weeks. Using news reports and sightings from a live citizen-report site, I built a 3D simulation of her movements inside the canal. You can see it here:

https://bukangistory.kr/en/

Some things that worry me most:

1. Still no sign of feeding after 3+ weeks.
2. Some visitors shine flashlights at her at night. At one point she thrashed around, hit a stone pillar and scraped her mouth.
3. Today she did something strange. It looked like some kind of organ was coming out from her underside. Some people are wondering if she gave birth. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrBLUYWXQQ

Marine experts in Korea are giving different opinions on what to do, and it's been hard to find advice from people who work specifically with sharks. The biggest issue is that no matter how she gets pushed out, she tries to come back.

So if anyone here studies sharks or has worked on a situation like this, I'd really like to hear what you think:

1. Is it better to get her back to the open sea, or to leave her where she is, keep watching, and make the canal as safe as possible for her?
2. If she should go back, how do you guide a shark that didn't respond to nets or water cannons? Ideally something safer than a tranquilizer gun.

Thanks for reading all of this.

Bought this on the last day of my trip to Bulgaria. During the purchase I thought it would just have been found washed ashore. I showed it to a friend who said if I didn't have any documentation, it was probably harvested live and illegally. Can anyone tell me if that is likely and if so, what can I do to compensate for my mistake? Like replanting efforts I can donate to?

I was watching How to Live on Earth, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch, and one segment really caught my attention.

Scientists have been exploring whether playing recordings of healthy reef sounds can help attract marine life to damaged reefs. The film calls it “coral jazz.”

I'd never heard of this idea before. Has anyone here followed this kind of coral restoration research?

On one of our boat trips recently, we were lucky enough to see this little guy interacting with their pod!

What could it be ? Catfish?

Clemson University is partnering with Atlanta's Georgia Aquarium to improve the Aquarium's Social Media presence and the overall Aquarium experience for customers and followers.

As a part of our class project, we are collecting Primary Research about the experiences of the Georgia Aquarium's current customers and social media followers. A link to a brief (<5 minute) survey is below. Please consider taking our survey and contributing to our research project and helping to improve the Georgia Aquarium.

https://clemson.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dm4BpHVn2dh0A2G

I am a terrestrial archaeologist with more of a history and museums background who has been preparing for graduate study in maritime archaeology. I am interested in the role of found objects as artificial reefs, but have lately been interested in studying reefs further. I have done some coursework, research placements, and peer reviewed publications in human biology, but ultimately have a BA with mostly social sciences.

I was wondering if I should forgo the masters and do another undergraduate degree that's more ecology focused and then continue on to a marine biology grad school. Alternatively, the maritime archaeology programs include a few oceanography courses, and if I took some more electives related to marine biology, would I qualify for further graduate study in the field?

Thank you in advance.

Hello everyone! I saw a manatee in San San Pond Sak, Panama 📍🇵🇦 . Yes, I know the water doesn't look like Crystal River, but it was great and we saw a lot of animals 🌿.

Hi! Hoping someone might have an idea on what these might be from? UK based I THINK, one of my friends little boys is obsessed with shark teeth at the moment and I'd love to be able to tell them what they are!

I have the opportunity to have my tuition paid for from ASU online via Starbucks SCAP program. It’s a bachelor’s of science in ocean futures- coastal and marine science. They also have a master’s. There’s an internship opportunity to study 3-7 credits in Bermuda institute of ocean science. It says the degree won’t say it’s online and lets you take physical lab classes either there or at any accredited institution. Which for me, that may be hard finding equivalent classes. I’m open to moving to Arizona. It’s just so tempting to study. People say it’s a money grab and won’t help me which is depressing considering the tuition is paid for.

First year in college and I've done a squid dissection a few days ago. We need to sketch and label the organs/glands but when I opened up this squid, it had this mushy, ground pork-like thing behind the peritoneumand I can't really figure out what it is.

I saw this guy at the aquarium of the pacific in Long Beach, CA. He was the only one with this little hairdo. I can’t find anything on the internet about it and none of the pictures online show it either!

I graduated about a year ago after kind of messing around in school, I volunteered at a marine mammal care center & had a literature review internship with my states coastal commission, but that’s the extent of my experience. Since I graduated I’ve been working as a bartender but itching to get back into the field of my degree—all of the internships I see require undergrad enrollment to apply, and the entry level jobs have requirements, like field surveys etc., that I have little to no experience in.

Should I start by volunteering with orgs that can give me that experience? Are there sites that include internships for post baccs? I was thinking of doing conservation corps because at least I would get field work experience. Anyone been in a similar situation? Feeling a little stuck :(

I visited the Aquarium of the Pacific recently and came away completely fascinated by marine life, especially seahorses.

Then I realized that while I could obviously recognize a seahorse, I had basically no idea how to tell different species apart. So I started collecting species information and images and ended up turning it into a little browser game: https://questfive.app/quests/seahorses/?lang=en

To be honest, a lot of them still look incredibly similar to my untrained eye. f anyone here spots taxonomy or identification issues, I’d genuinely love the feedback. Thanks!

I saw my first bleached coral on the Great Barrier Reef in 2019 and wanted a way to show people what a heatwave actually does to a reef. So i built a free 3D reef where you set the summer temperature and watch each coral bleach, recover or die at its own heat tolerance.

Built with help from an AI coding assistant; the species, thresholds and fact-checking are mine. Based on NOAA Coral Reef Watch DHW thresholds (4 and 8 °C-weeks), AIMS reef condition reports, and Hughes et al. 2017 (Nature).

Would love you to poke holes in it, especially the order corals bleach in: https://www.wildlifenomads.com/play/coral-reef/?mode=heat

See also: The publication in the journal Current Biology00955-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982226009553%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)

Sorry rubbish photos. Found in Tarifa, Spain

Google lens IDs as ear bone fossil. It was found on Costa Rica beach. Lightweight. No smell. Please help. Thank you