Mauritius - Aquarium / Big Rock

Setting

Two adjacent sites dived together off Le Morne: huge volcanic boulders and rock spurs separated by low pavement and dead coral framework, most of it covered in turf, foliose brown algae, and coralline algae (e.g., Image 2, Image 4, Image 6, Image 7, Image 11, Image 18).

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General benthic features

Manually-scored point-count cover was 14% hard coral, dominated by massive Porites, Pocillopora, a large tabular Acropora, and scattered encrusting faviid-type colonies (e.g., Image 3, Image 9, Image 13).

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Coral cover

Coral cover: 17% — the site cover estimate from Anderson Mayfield's Mauritius manuscript (his manual point count and CoralNet, weighted equally); the manual point count alone is 14%. The earlier four-method average for this site was 12.3%; every method is compared in the table below. Anderson is still evaluating other computer vision models for coral-cover work and plans to regenerate this CoralSCOP and DINOv3 figure once he finds one that performs better.

Stressors

No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

Highlights included a large day octopus, a resting sea turtle, a phyllidiid nudibranch, and a pair of double-barred goatfish (e.g., Image 12, Image 19).

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Comparisons with other data

No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.