About page

Online photographic guide to marine invertebrates of southern Australia

This website is designed as the first online port of call for the identification of marine invertebrates from southern Australia. I am providing this resource as a means of promoting awareness of the marine environment in the hope of increasing community support for the preservation of our marine ecosystems.

I have made it my focus to increase the number of species and the number of photos of each species, rather than providing a high level of information for each species. I provide the current taxonomy, location and habitat that I record each animal and I recommend Graham Edgar’s book Australian Marine Life as an excellent all round resource for more information on animal distributions, colour and form variability, habits and habitats.

For the photographic identification of marine animals it is always good to have access to multiple photos from multiple specimens as many species change form or colour over the extent of their geographic range. I have aimed to provide this where possible.

Pages are added whenever I am privileged to be in the presence of a ‘new’ species with camera in hand. I hope for this to be an ongoing work and will one day cover a good proportion of species in this region.

The coverage of invertebrate species is not complete. All care is taken to correctly identify the animals with the most current common and scientific names. However, if the identification is a matter of great import, have the sample verified by a taxonomic expert from your local museum. A list of my qualifications and experience can be accessed here, and a list of websites and books for further reference is available via the Resources link on each species page.

Feel free to use the photos for other purposes but please give due reference and send me an email to let me know. I can also offer high resolution images if you need them.

Yours sincerely
Tim Alexander