A new, interactive mapping tool launched last week that allows users to discover where more than 4,500 fish species can be found within the waters of Australia’s continental shelf and slope.
From top: Clown Triggerfish (Balistoides conspicillum), Globefish (Diodon nicthemerus), and Redfish (Centroberyx affinis). Source: FishMap
Known as FishMap, the online resource provides search and sort options for location, depth ranges, family, and ecosystem, and generates visual maps with illustrations for each species. Lists can be printed to create simple guides or downloaded to a spreadsheet template for collecting new data.
“Australia’s marine biodiversity is among the richest in world,” says ichthyologist Mr Daniel Gledhill of CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship. “FishMap is the only resource of its kind in the world that covers virtually all species of marine fish found in the marine waters of an entire continent.”
FishMap is built upon more than a century of research, as well as the work of museums and research agencies across Australia who contributed underlying data and images.
