Marine life: where to see each animal
Australia's signature dive encounters, from grey nurse sharks and whale sharks to leafy seadragons and giant cuttlefish. Each page explains where, when and how, and lists every site in the directory that records the species.
Sharks & rays
Grey nurse shark
Carcharias taurus
A placid, critically endangered shark that hangs in sandy gutters at a handful of east-coast aggregation sites.
160 sites
Whale shark
Rhincodon typus
The largest fish in the sea, encountered by snorkellers off Ningaloo from March to July and at Christmas Island in the wet season.
24 sites
Manta ray
Mobula alfredi and M. birostris
Reef mantas visit cleaning stations year-round at Coral Bay and Lady Elliot Island, and in summer along the NSW and Queensland coasts.
127 sites
Leopard shark (zebra shark)
Stegostoma tigrinum
A docile, spotted shark that gathers in summer at Julian Rocks, North Stradbroke and Cook Island in numbers seen nowhere else.
53 sites
Wobbegong sharks
Orectolobus spp.
Carpet sharks found on nearly every reef from the Gold Coast to Perth, piled in caves at Julian Rocks and under every Sydney ledge.
452 sites
Port Jackson shark
Heterodontus portusjacksoni
A harmless, horn-finned shark that gathers in large numbers on the southern NSW and Victorian coast in late winter to breed.
302 sites
Reef sharks
Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos, C. melanopterus, Triaenodon obesus
Grey reef, whitetip and blacktip sharks on every Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo site, with silvertips on the Coral Sea walls.
458 sites
Hammerhead sharks
Sphyrna lewini and S. mokarran
Scalloped hammerheads school at Osprey Reef, the Rowley Shoals and the outer Great Barrier Reef, and cruise the NSW coast in summer.
31 sites
Seadragons & seahorses
Weedy seadragon
Phyllopteryx taeniolatus
Victoria's marine emblem, a 45 cm relative of the seahorse found along kelp edges from Port Stephens to Geraldton.
242 sites
Leafy seadragon
Phycodurus eques
South Australia's marine emblem and one of the most sought-after fish in the world, most reliably seen at Rapid Bay.
28 sites
Seahorses & pygmy pipehorses
Hippocampus spp., Idiotropiscis spp.
White's, big-belly and pot-bellied seahorses on nets and pylons, and thumbnail-sized pygmy pipehorses in the weed of Sydney and the south.
255 sites
Cephalopods
Giant Australian cuttlefish
Sepia apama
The world's largest cuttlefish, and the star of the Whyalla winter aggregation, where tens of thousands breed in a few metres of water.
102 sites
Octopus & cuttlefish
Octopus tetricus, O. maorum, Sepia spp.
Gloomy octopus, Maori octopus, blue-ringed octopus, pyjama squid and cuttlefish, the stars of every temperate night dive.
672 sites
Marine mammals
Fur seals
Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus and A. forsteri
Australian and New Zealand fur seals haul out on islands from Montague Island to Kangaroo Island and play with divers in the shallows.
249 sites
Australian sea lion
Neophoca cinerea
An endangered sea lion found only in South Australia and southern WA, famous for playful swims at Hopkins Island, Baird Bay and Jurien Bay.
64 sites
Humpback whale
Megaptera novaeangliae
Forty thousand humpbacks migrate along both coasts each winter, heard on every dive and swum with at Ningaloo and Hervey Bay.
45 sites
Dwarf minke whale
Balaenoptera acutorostrata subsp.
Curious 7 m whales that approach snorkellers on the Ribbon Reefs in June and July, in the only permitted minke swim program in the world.
6 sites
Dugong
Dugong dugon
A shy seagrass-grazing sea cow found in Shark Bay, Moreton Bay and the northern coast; a rare and lucky sight for divers.
28 sites
Fish
Potato cod
Epinephelus tukula
A 1.5 m grouper that approaches divers at the Cod Hole on the Ribbon Reefs and at a few Coral Sea and WA sites.
25 sites
Blue groper
Achoerodus viridis and A. gouldii
NSW's state fish, a bold metre-long wrasse that follows divers around every southern reef, and its larger western cousin.
342 sites
Blue devilfish
Paraplesiops bleekeri and P. meleagris
Spectacular, cave-dwelling fish of the temperate coast: the eastern blue devil in NSW ledges and the southern blue devil under South Australian jetties.
294 sites
Turtles & other
Sea turtles
Chelonia mydas, Caretta caretta, Eretmochelys imbricata
Green, loggerhead and hawksbill turtles on every tropical reef, with nesting on the southern Great Barrier Reef cays from November to March.
675 sites
Nudibranchs
Nudibranchia
More than 1,000 species of sea slug on Australian reefs, with the temperate south holding some of the richest nudibranch sites in the world.
611 sites