About FathomVerse

The ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, yet most of the life within it remains undiscovered. FathomVerse is changing that, one dive at a time.

FathomVerse is a free app that invites everyone with a smartphone or tablet to take part in real ocean exploration and discovery. Developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and partners through the FathomNet Program, FathomVerse connects a global community of ocean enthusiasts—called FathomNauts—with cutting-edge science.

Through interactive mini-games, FathomNauts identify animals in real underwater photos and contribute to a growing library of labeled images that helps scientists catalog and understand marine life.

With FathomVerse, you can:

Be among the first to review real imagery collected in the ocean.
Learn to identify more than 70 groups of ocean animals.
Help train AI models by labeling animals in underwater images.
Participate in quests, earn badges, and track your scientific contributions.
Save and share your favorite ocean images in a personal gallery.

Whether you're a lifelong ocean lover or simply curious about what lives in the depths, FathomVerse makes it easy to contribute to meaningful scientific research one dive at a time. Download FathomVerse on the App Store or Google Play.

Why it Matters

FathomVerse aims to increase our capacity to measure and monitor marine life in a changing ocean. Scientists estimate that 30-60% of life in the ocean remains undiscovered. From sunlit coastal shores to the unexplored deep, the health of our ocean affects every living thing on Earth. Understanding what lives there and how those communities are changing is essential to protecting it. FathomVerse enlists ocean enthusiasts worldwide to work alongside scientists in their mission to discover all life in the ocean.

How It Works

The images you see in FathomVerse are real underwater photos. Scientists, coastal communities, government agencies, and enthusiasts all over the world collect massive amounts of images and video to study marine life and assess ocean health. There are thousands of hours of underwater footage, and scientists are unable to parse through all of the visual data to identify every animal on the screen.

A type of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning can help to quickly analyze ocean imagery, but it needs people to continuously train and verify the models. That's where FathomVerse comes in. FathomVerse users identify marine animals in real underwater images. The labeled images are then added to a public database and used to train AI models. By training AI to identify animals within ocean imagery, we can accelerate our understanding of biodiversity in the ocean.

Who We Are

FathomVerse is a collaborative, multi-institutional project led by FathomNet and MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija. To develop FathomVerse, Katija and MBARI software engineers collaborated with game design experts &ranj Serious Games—a Netherlands-based game development studio focused on positive behavioral change through play—and Internet of Elephants—a nature tech enterprise based in Kenya focused on rekindling relationships between people and wildlife. Funding for FathomVerse came from the National Science Foundation the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation.

Acknowledgments

We’d like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their contributions to FathomVerse:

MBARI

Monterey Bay Aquarium

&ranj Serious Games

Internet of Elephants

Barderry Applied Research LLC

Dingo Sky LLC

National Science Foundation

David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation

Animal icons: Kurtis Wothe and other Phylopic contributors*

Animated logos: Kurtis Wothe

Audio channels: Hydrophone - John Ryan, MBARI, Ocean Soundscape Team; Into the Deep - Monterey Bay Aquarium, Into the Deep / En lo Profundo Exhibit

Award images and video clips: Jaida Elcock, MBARI’s Video Lab, 32K Productions

Mission briefing images: MBARI’s Video Lab, NOAA-OER

Badge images: Schmidt Ocean Institute, NOAA-OER

Labeled data: FathomNet Database contributors

Unlabeled data: MBARI, NOAA Ocean Exploration, Ocean Networks Canada, Ocean Observatories Initiative, Ocean Exploration Trust, Schmidt Ocean Institute, Joost Daniels, Dawn Wright/Esri

Beta testers: Eric Albert, Laura Anderson, Kelsey Archer Barnhill, Madi Baird, Megan Barry, Sean W Brown, Allen Cheng, Riley Choi, Jack Dalton, Christina Des Rochers, Caroline Edmonds, Gisselle Farfán-Magaña, Katherine Farfán-Magaña, Tennyson Filcek, Davina Gifford, Alexander Graber, Micaela Johnson, Pat Lee, Caitlyn Left, Dennis Lieu, Alex Magaña, Vikram Mohanty, Christopher Nolan, Golnoush Pak, Lydia Rysavy, Heather Scott, Zuriel Silva, Aeryn Siu Lee, Gail Siu Lee, James Siu Lee, Josiah Terpstra, Ruben Van Pinxteren, Georgia Watson, Leander Weihs, Dane Whicker, Belinda Zhao

We are grateful for the contributions provided by the Science, Engineering, and Operations groups that work in partnership at various institutions for generating the imagery shown in FathomVerse.

FathomVerse is a contribution of the FathomNet Program and MBARI’s Bioinspiration Lab.

*Lauren Sumner-Rooney, Guillaume Dera, Felix Vaux, Kanchi Nanjo, Christoph Schomburg, Mario Quevedo, Levi Simons, T Michael Keesey, Nathan Hermann, Steven Haddock, JR Winnikoff, Becky Barnes, Prespa Research Group, AH Baldwin, Ferran Sayol, Séverine Martini, Ludwik Gasiorowski