Catalogue ofAtlantic Deep Sea Fauna

This species catalogue of megafauna in the North Atlantic is a collaboration between the University of Plymouth, Ifremer and NOAA.

The catalogue was initiated by Dr Kerry Howell and Dr Jaime Davies at the University of Plymouth for use in the analysis of epibenthic megafauna from stills images and video data. In most cases the identifications provided have not been verified by physical sampling and thus must be treated with some caution. Each entry in the catalogue has an Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) number which we would strongly advise you to use in addition to, or in place of, the given taxon name as identifications may change over time through further verification. The taxonomy used is taken from the World Register of Marine Species (WORMS). In 2012, the catalogue was shared with Ifremer where it has been used and expanded to identify the fauna from videos and images taken by the ROV Victor and the towed camera Scampi in canyons of the Bay of Biscay.

Our aim in releasing the catalogue to others is to aid in the standardization of identification of deep-sea species from video and image data. Therefore if you feel we have made an error in our identification or can provide identification to a lower taxonomic level than is currently given for an entry please contact Dr Howell at the University of Plymouth (kerry.howell@plymouth.ac.uk) and Dr Menot at Ifremer (lenaick.menot@ifremer.fr). In addition if you have images you would like to contribute to the catalogue, either better images of something already in the catalogue, or images of species new to the catalogue, please contact us. All images remain the property of the contributor.

We would like to thank all those who have given their opinions on the identifications of animals in the catalogue. This is an updated version of the Howell, K.L. & Davies, J.S. (2010) catalogue that was previously on line at http://www.marlin.ac.uk/deep-sea-species-image-catalogue/, and the currently downloadable Howell, K.L., Davies, J.S. (2010) Deep-sea species image catalogue, On-line version 2, 2016 https://deepseacru.org/2016/12/16/deep-sea-species-image-catalogue/. We hope to continue to improve it over time and make it as user friendly as possible.

Please cite any use of this online catalogue as:

Howell, K.L., Davies, J.S., van den Beld I. (2017) Deep-sea species image catalogue. University of Plymouth, Ifremer, NOAA. http://www.deepseacatalogue.fr/ On-line version 3, 2017.

If you are using the images in presentations please ensure that you credit the image owner (details in the database).