Marine Life of the Maldives - Indian Ocean

Neville Coleman OAM (1938 - 2012) was an Australian naturalist, underwater photographer, writer, publisher and educator. He started scuba diving in the 1960s, exploring Sydney Harbour. He later joined a scientific study group and commenced a photographic project aiming to document the entire marine life of Australia. His first book, Australian Marine Fishes in Colour, was published in 1974 and he went on to write more than 50 titles. Coleman discovered many marine creatures new to science. Several species of fish, nudibranchs and other invertebrates have been named after him, including the mantis shrimp Lysiosquilla colemani, the nudibranch Chromodoris colemani, and the pygmy seahorse Hippocampus colemani. In 2007 Coleman was inducted to the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame and, in 2011, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for “service to conservation and the environment through the photographic documentation of Australian marine species”.