Updated 2/27/2024
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Introduction

Aloha and thank you for visiting.  I love scuba diving, fish watching, underwater photography, plants & flowers, and sharing discoveries of God's creation with you.  My goal as marine educator and photographer is to promote awareness, appreciation, conservation, and respect for our world and its inhabitants.  We must all take an active role in preserving the earth's resources for tomorrow.  

 

Using this site

Access each group with the icons below the banner above.  Groups are further divided by family, phylum, or logical unit.  Each unit page lists species by geographic region starting with Hawaii as default.  Each region's most common species are shown first along with similar ones for comparison.  Individual species pages may be accessed by clicking the image below its scientific name (yellow italic).

Common & Scientific Names

Common names are important but of limited usefulness as they can be created, modified, and changed by anyone.  It is not unusual for a common name to be used for entirely different species in different parts of the world or for a single species to have a multitude of common names.  Effort has been made to choose a US English common name (bold white) prevalent in Hawaii or the host country along with a local name if appropriate.  In the case where no such common name exists, I have taken the liberty of creating one based on descriptive characteristics or a translation of the scientific name.  In order to reduce confusion it is necessary to refer to each species using its scientific name.  

The scientific name is generally accepted worldwide by professionals of any nation.  In general the accepted scientific name is the oldest known recorded description of a given species found in scientific literature.  Many of the names are based on Latin or Greek.

It is important to note that ongoing research often results in changes to currently 'accepted' scientific names.  Examples include the discovery of an older description, the reassignment of one species as a variety of another (lumping, with the stricken name becoming a synonym), splitting of a single species into two or more distinct species (splitting), or the promotion or demotion of a genus or subgenus.  Name changes can lead to confusion as print references age and name changes take place.  Certain researchers have a propensity to split or lump species to excess only making the situation worse.  This situation is particularly bad among seashells and herein I have chosen to keep things simple by refraining from promoting subgenera to full generic status. 

 

Updates & Contributions

Updates are made regularly as our collection continues to grow.  You may contribute images & species of interest to expand our library.  If deemed relevant, your photos will be cropped to 300 pixels wide (high if vertical) to best illustrate the subject.  Your name will be watermarked at the bottom.  These images will not be sold or released to a third party, however please remember that everything on this site is public domain, on display free-of-charge, and copying without permission is an assumed risk.  These photos are too small to yield an acceptable print and I discard your original submissions once the web image is complete.

 

Disclaimer

The purpose of this website is education and stock photography sales.  I do not sell fish, shells, plants, or specimens of any kind.

 

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