Because of the geographic location and the topography, the island is home to a great variety of shark and pelagic species. The island towers up from the deep, much like a vertical cliff, consequently attracting a huge diversity of sharks and other pelagic life that utilize the surrounding reef for cleaning, feeding, and maturing. This makes diving great all year round, making each dive exciting and adventurous.
With every dive, divers have an opportunity to encounter plentiful varieties of massive pelagic fish such as Giant Trevallies, Snappers, Great Barracudas, Skipjack, and Dogtooth Tunas, and a whole host of spectacular reef fish that come with a healthy and thriving coral reef.
There is always potential to observe sharks and maybe even some rare species.
The most frequently observed species include, Tiger Sharks, Thresher sharks, Hammerheads, Whale sharks, Grey reefs, notp, and White tip reef sharks, along with a myriad of pelagic fish and countless colorful reef fish throughout the rich coral reefs.
Some less frequent but uncommon encounters include Scalloped, Mola Mola, Oceanic Mantas, Oceanic white tip sharks, spinner, and silky sharks.
Five of the seven known species of turtles in the world are seen in the Maldives.
Spinner dolphins are the most commonly sighted owing to their predictable daily migrations. Each morning they travel into the Atoll to rest during the day and then travel back out of the Atoll to feed at night. The movements of the larger Bottlenose dolphins are more transient in response to the availability of their larger prey. Occasionally other Dolphin and Whale species like Risso’s dolphin and Shortfin pilot whales are also sighted.
With flat, wide bodies, stingrays may not look like fish, but they are! There are about 6 types Rays commonly found in Maldives.
They have a deadly weapon on the tail. But they would sting only on self-defense and when they do they would often go for critical parts of the body such as chest or neck. It is an amazing creature to snorkel with, just keep 8 feet distance and enjoy. You can actually go even closer but to do that you need to understand it, you should know if it is feeling safe from you. Stingrays are commonly found in the lagoon.
