Best critter ID sources on web?

My favorites include

- FishBase, http://www.fishbase.org/, for fishes

- Sea Slug Forum, http://www.seaslugforum.net/, for nudibranchs

What would be good sites for crustacean searches? What about corals? Or other more specialized sites well worth visiting for ID purposes?

Searching around, I found a pretty good site at

http://www.reefimages.com/

It has lots of different species and plenty of phots.

Here's a good one for Indo-Pacific critters:

http://www.edge-of-reef.com/

It's based in Bunaken Marine Park.

Also another fish ID which is excellent and also out of the Aussie Museum, like the Slug Forum, is Identify a Fish:

http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/identify/

Marli

Hi!

There's a good site for identifying slugs: MedSlugs which started out to cover slugs in the Mediterranean (hence the name) but has got a good collection of worldwide entries by now.

You may even send pictures for identification. Donations to the collection are also welcome.

Helge ;-)=)

I've got two sites on Cephalopods:

CephBase

http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/

The Cephalopod Page

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/tcp/

That you might want to take a look at for octopus, squid and cuttlefish.

Hey guys,

I've pinned this thread in order to keep it current... Should anyone find any more useful links please post them here.

Cheers,

Bob

James, thanks for the links to your octo et al. pages! Great humoUr included in the FAQ as well

So far the best list of crustacean resources I have found is http://www.vims.edu/tcs/crust_links.htm. However, most of the stuff is not that easily accessible for semi-casual user...

One more link: http://uri.sakura.ne.jp/~dd/goby.htm is a specialized site about gobies! The image indexes are especially nice.

Okay,

Here's a site that may assist people's needs for identifying species:

Marine Species Pages

Click on the "Marine Index" link.

I'm currently working on it and the plan is to have 500 species up by the end of next year. Species will include fish, crustaceans, cephalopods, syngnathids, plants, nudibranchs, corals and sponges. The species will eventually have a search function so that users can search by common name, scientific name, family, order etc...

cheers,

Dave

also, other good websites:

For Fish Species Australian Museum Fish Website

For Nudibranchs - The Sea Slug Forum

For you Southeast US and Florida folks.. Florida field guides

Yea some land stuff is listed but the references are pretty good.

-T

Try:

http://www.marlin.ac.uk/

http://www.habitas.org.uk/marinelife/index.html?item=species

for British and Irish species

We have two website:

for general Marine life determinations: http://www.poppe-images.com - 37,000 scientific determinations.

(from the Philippines)

for worldwide conchological determinations: http://www.conchology.be - 240,000 pictured shells in CyberConchology.

(Land & Seashells)

Philippe & Guido

I found this Japanese site whilst searching (as usual), for nudibranch id.s It's a pretty amazing resource for Indo Pacific and Western pacific nudibranchs.

http://www.shopvv.com/~ocean/umiushi/index.html

Cheers,

Marli

Great snail / shell ID site

http://www.bigai.ne.jp/pic_book/shape.html

General ID site

http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/zoo/1024frameset.htm

Chuck

For ID of living molluscs and their shells - www.seashell-collector.com (Click on "Shells' Identification", then "Access to the Forum Now")

For mostly fish, but also including any underwater life photos that

people care to submit (i.e. Corals, Turtles etc.), try the site:

http://www.fishdb.co.uk

For mostly fish, but also including any underwater life photos that

people care to submit (i.e. Corals, Turtles etc.), try the site:

 

http://www.fishdb.co.uk

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dave just added a Fish Identification quiz where you can select a region and/or fish family and then get a random series of images from that selection with a 5-answer multiple choice to test your skills. With over 500 images this is a great new resource.

I it!!!

If you select the advanced mode, then the multiple choice answers will be trickier as they tend to be more realistic (e.g. if the image is a wrasse, all answers will be wrasses). I also like the fact that not all images show the fish perfectly side-on. Some will show head shots, tail shots, or fish were part of the body is hidden. Because there tend to be multiple images of the same species you also get a better sampling of the variability with age, sex, region, behaviour ...

To my knowledge this is one of few sites that relies on the diving community to submit images. Several people have been chipping in over the past two months helping to boost both quantity and quality of the material. But more is better and there are still many species and regions that are not represented or that could use higher quality images. Obviously, everyone loves to see stunning pictures but even beginners can take great shots for fish identification purposes. So if your UW-images are collecting magnetic dust on a harddrive then why not collect some credit and make them available for everyone to enjoy?

Bart

A site concerning the Mediterrean: http://www.cotebleue.org/

A site concerning the Mediterrean: http://www.cotebleue.org/

http://www.nudipixel.net/

Is extremely good and easy to use................much easier than the Sea Slug Forum, you can search by different ways..............

fishbase.org

After a long silence we start uploading again photos on www.poppe-images.com.

There are 46 622 photos from marine life of the Philippines today. 4500 photos will be uploaded in the coming weeks and over 10 000 are in processing stage. Please visit.

We need help for corrections on many groups as we are experts in mollusks only (but that concerns 56000 marine species - of which about 5000 are living in front of my house here and we discovered over 2000 new species in the last 6 years. Expected are 12000 species for the Philippines in the short term future). Of the newly discovered ones we could describe and let describe about 250 in the latest two years, looking for funding also in order to proceed fast with the description of the 1800 undescribed ones waiting in drawers. Contact us if interested in this project.

Guido