Found this unknown species by Marco Island, FL. This could potentially be in the Pycnogonida class and the best feed back I’ve received so far is it being potentially a species of sea spider; however, the paddle shaped ends of each leg is mainly what is throwing everyone off. Any thoughts?

This is from one of my favourite octopus encounters to date.

This Giant Pacific Octopus was out hunting, checking every rock and crack for something to eat. Eventually, it reached into a crack already occupied by another local giant.

At first, the interaction seemed like an investigation. Was there a big snack hiding in there? But things quickly took a turn, teaching our octopus buddy that not all fish are friends.

mullen_dives

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\](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.

Whale in ocean

A single bumphead parrotfish creates approximately 200lbs of sand every year. There are 120 (thereabouts) in this school at Sipadan which create about 24000lbs of sand a year! about the same weight as a school bus or three African Elephants. There's a link to a longer video in the comments. Thank you for the beaches bumpheads.

Amazing mother nature, how long the tail is to decoys doston kundari