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Fish Identifier

The Fish Identifier lets you upload a photo of a marine animal and get its species, taxonomy, a Wikipedia description in your language, and its conservation status. It's powered by AI running on our own servers — your photo is analysed for identification and then discarded, no image copy is kept.

What it can identify​

The AI is trained on a database of more than 385,000 marine species, so it covers most of what you'll photograph on a dive:

  • Fish — bony fish and cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays)
  • Cephalopods — octopus, cuttlefish, squid
  • Reptiles — turtles, sea snakes
  • Crustaceans and molluscs
  • Nudibranchs — the AI is particularly strong here thanks to the wide reference set
  • Coral

Freshwater species are also included, so aquarium or river photos work too.

How to use it​

  1. Open the Fish Identifier page from the sidebar (or from the dashboard).
  2. Either drag a photo onto the drop zone, click Upload photo to pick a file, or — on mobile — tap Take photo to use the camera.
  3. Hit Identify this fish.
  4. In a few seconds you get the best match plus ranked alternatives.

Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG or HEIC, up to 20 MB.

Reading the result​

The main card shows:

  • Reference photo of the identified species (from Wikipedia)
  • Confidence score as a percentage — green ≥ 70%, amber 40–70%, red below 40%
  • Common name and scientific name
  • A Wikipedia description localised to your app language when available (falls back to English)
  • Taxonomy grid: family, order, class
  • Conservation status from the IUCN Red List when available (Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, etc.)
  • A Read on Wikipedia link to the full article

Below the main card, an Other possibilities section lists ranked alternatives with their own confidence bars. Use it when the AI hesitates between look-alike species (very common within the same genus).

Tips for better results​

  • Clear side profile of the animal works best.
  • Avoid heavy back-lighting and motion blur.
  • If the subject is mostly hidden by structure (rocks, coral), the AI has less to work with — expect lower confidence.
  • The AI only looks at the animal, not the background — so aquarium and dive-log screenshots work fine.

Freemium and quota​

The Fish Identifier is a Premium tool with a free quota so you can try it:

  • Free tier: 10 identifications total (not monthly — cumulative until Premium is activated).
  • Premium: unlimited identifications.

A banner at the top of the page shows how many identifications remain on your free quota. Once exhausted, results are gated behind an upgrade prompt.

Privacy​

  • The photo is uploaded to our identification service, used to compute the match, and immediately discarded.
  • No image copy is stored on our servers.
  • No EXIF or location metadata is extracted or logged.
  • Only the identification event (fact that an identification happened) is kept for usage analytics, without the photo or the species.

Limits and caveats​

  • Pattern-and-colour recognition is not an exact science. The AI can occasionally return unexpected results, especially on partial views, poor lighting, or species underrepresented in its training data.
  • Some rare species — even marine ones — may fall outside the 385,000-species reference set entirely.
  • When in doubt, use the ranked alternatives and cross-check against a field guide.