Limpet species collected along the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico and California, USA, either from the field in January 2024 (Baja specimens only) or from the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (including Baja and California specimens).

Shellfish morphology, age and physiology

Cameras

This dataset comprises images of dorsal and ventral views of four limpet species: Fissurella volcano, Lottia gigantea, Lottia conus, and Lottia strigatella. The photographed specimens were collected along the Baja California peninsula, Mexico and California, USA, either from the field in January 2024 (Baja specimens only) or from the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (including Baja and California specimens). Images are of the dried shells against a black background and have been categorised based on orientation (dorsal or ventral). The images were used to test computer vision for identifying cryptic morphological differences between genetically distinct populations as part of the NERC Discovery Science grant, ‘CryptoBioVision: Applying Computer Vision for Cryptic Species Discovery’ (NE/X011518/1), awarded to principal investigator Dr Phillip Fenberg at the University of Southampton. The images used to test the CryptoBioVision model have been deposited at the British Oceanographic Data Centre for long term storage.

Hollister, J.D, Paz-Garcia, D.A., Beas-Luna, R., Horton, T., Cai, X., and Fenberg, P.B. (2025) Genes, shells, and AI: using computer vision to detect cryptic morphological divergence between genetically distinct populations of limpets, Scientific Reports

British Oceanographic Data Centre
Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5DA
United Kingdom