Dolphin Spotting

Dolphin Spotting pairs underwater and aerial video with a layered citizen-science task: first find the dolphins, then describe what they are doing and what surrounds them. Those labels are meant to give behavioral context to the research team's acoustic recordings.

What is Dolphin Spotting?

The premise is simple enough for a quick pass and rich enough to reward a careful eye. Four workflows divide the work by viewpoint and depth: underwater or aerial clips, followed by either presence detection or more detailed behavior and context labels. The same two free-living dolphins appear in footage gathered in a Red Sea bay, so continuity matters; a body slipping out of one camera can surface in another, and background details such as divers or a feeding area may explain what is happening. The research team intends to combine these human observations with its analyses of dolphin vocalizations. That makes each clip less a cute-animal interlude than a small piece of an audiovisual dictionary still being assembled.

What you can do there

• Detect dolphins in underwater and aerial clips
• Describe dolphin behavior and scene context

Why we picked it

The split between simply spotting an animal and reading the whole scene gives this project a neat second gear. A tail splash, an overlapping camera view, or a quiet pause near a feeding pole can become context for a sound, turning familiar dolphin footage into attentive fieldwork at a desk.

How to get the most from it

Begin with a presence-detection workflow if tasks are available, then move to behavior annotation once you understand the camera views. Check the FAQ for ambiguous sightings and overlapping angles, use full screen when details are small, and record your best cautious judgment rather than forcing certainty.

Good to know

The homepage still showed a start control, but the project's About pages reported that it was finished and temporarily out of data during review, so there may be nothing to classify. Video playback, sound, captions, account prompts, mobile support, and accessibility were not tested. The page cannot be embedded outside Zooniverse.

Who made it, and when?

IBENS Dolphin Team at Sumbre Lab is the credited creator or organization. The earliest supported launch date we found is February 3, 2026.