The Database of Marine Organisms of Mauritius is an initiative of the Mauritius Oceanography Institute, with the aim to provide a baseline for marine biodiversity in Mauritian Waters and a tool for researchers, developers and decision-makers.

The Database attempts to cover marine organisms reported from the entire maritime territory of the Republic of Mauritius , which extends over an area of about 1.9 million square kilometres. However, the highest number of species reported are coastal organisms around the island of Mauritius , followed by Chagos Archipelago and Rodrigues. Fewer numbers are reported from Cargados Carajos Archipelago which has received little attention on the part of scientists mainly because of their remoteness. Offshore Mauritian waters have been poorly studied.

The search option allows search of scientific names. Entry of partial names will automatically generate suggestions for complete names.

The browse option displays a list of species under selected higher taxa or species occurring around islands of the Republic of Mauritius.

The reference search menu allows search of a reference using Author, or Title, Year or Species.

Various sources have been used for the compilation of data for the database. The starting point was the list of marine species compiled by Claude Michel in the Mauritius Institute Bulletin, Volume VII , Part 2 of May 1974. Taxonomy, being a dynamic field with regular revisions in nomenclature and classification, many of the names listed by Michel (1974) are now no longer in use and appear as synonyms. In cases where the names are not found in other databases or references, the species is listed as a separate entity. We believe that some of these might be synonyms, but in the absence of literature we present them as current species names.

The following other major sources of data have been important in building this database:

Classification of organisms varies depending on the sources from where a species is recorded. For the purpose of this Database, the classification system of Integrated Taxonomic Information System, ITIS, was adopted to find taxonomic appurtenances of each genus that has been so far compiled.

We are grateful to Thierry Dandrimont and the Albion Fisheries Research Centre for freely providing photographs of some molluscs and cnidarians respectively.

Many of the reports of marine organisms are relatively old, some dating as early as the 1800’s. The zone of collection of these early reported specimens was only “ Mauritius ”, without any specification with regard to the location they were collected. Details on distribution are provided whenever available in literature.

Any usage of data from this web site in publications must be acknowledged as follows:
Database of Marine Organisms of Mauritius 2007. Mauritius Oceanography Institute [online]. https://moi.govmu.org/marinedb [Accessed dd.mm.yyyy].