We are looking for recommendations for fish ID apps you can use on your phone. Do you use one? Or ID apps for corals or other creatures? If you do, and you would recommend it to others, please comment to share what it is and if the app is available for Apple, Android or both.
We have some old recommendations, but the apps don’t seem to work on our Android phones.
We recommend some books for fish, creature and coral identification on this page, but for travel it would be so much better to have the information on our phones.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can offer.
Since I pretty much just snorkel Hawaii I use two apps on my iPhone: Scuba Fish Hawaii and Snorkel Fish Hawaii, both by John Hoover. They let you look up fish by shape, color or name. They are very helpful when sitting on a beach trying to figure out what I just saw!
I’ve been using the electronic versions of New World Publications Reef Books for years on my Android tablet and phone. I’ve used various apps to read them. The one I use now is Pocketbook. It’s not always easy, especially when I get a new device.
Recently I tried Picture Fish (Android and Apple). It was after I had identified most of the fish from our last trip so I haven’t used it too much but I was impressed by how well it works. It automatically does an ID based on a picture. About 50% of the time it has no idea but the rest of the time it works well, better than Google Lens. It works reasonably well. Although once it claimed a fish was a tree frog. Typically I take a picture of my computer or tablet to get the image into my phone.
The Smithsonian makes two. One is for the Caribbean (Android or iOS Apple) and the other for the eastern Pacific (Android or iOS Apple). Neither is truly user-friendly, but they are accurate and helpful.
Hi Warren and all, these are the apps we mentioned above that were old and would not work on our Android phones.
I’ve used the iNaturalist app on my Android phone (also available on Apple), though prefer to use their website, to help me identify marine life I see. There are local projects which use the app to get information on local flora and fauna.
As a citizen science fish survey diver/snorkeler for Reef.org I use the 3-volume “Reef Fishes of the East Indies” in Indonesia and Fiji on my iPad. It is also available for Android devices. I also have the Reef Fish ID ebooks mentioned above. I find the phone screen too small for my needs.
Any other fish geeks should check out Reef.org to help scientists and add another level of interest to your snorkels!
I have two effective apps on my iPhone, Nudibranch ID Central Indo Pacific Region by Gary Cobb and Red Sea Fish ID version 3.3 by John Hoover and Richard Field. Both are fantastic.
Gary Cobb nudibranch ID apps are available for both Apple and Android devices.
Wow, wouldn’t it be great if all the Fish ID books were available by app and we wouldn’t have to lug around our heavy books anymore???