Scuba Diving Punta Maria Dive Dolphins Cocos Island

Among Cocos Island’s many attributes is a startling degree of biodiversity. This Island’s world-renowned waters explode with life; including innumerable white tip reef sharks, schooling hammerhead sharks, dolphins, mantas and marbled rays, giant moray eels, sailfish, and of course the occasional whale shark. Other common encounters are large schools of jacks and tuna, silky sharks, silver tip sharks, marlin, Creole fish, green turtles and octopus.

Cocos Island is also home to at least twenty seven endemic fish species including the exotic red-lipped batfish. The terrestrial life at Cocos also exhibits a high number of endemic plants. Here there exist around seventy out of the two hundred thirty five identified vascular plant species in the world, some twenty five species of moss, twenty seven species of liverwort and eighty five species of fungus. There are upwards of eighty seven bird species, including the famous Cocos Island cuckoo, finch and flycatcher. There are three hundred sixty two species of insects, of which sixty four are endemic, and two native reptiles.

Marine life: Hammerheads, white tips, silvertips, black tips, marble rays, octopus.Punta Maria is a seamount that rises from a deep sandy area up to 90 feet on the main rock and with two pinnacles reaching up to 65 and 75 feet below the surface, which can only be visited when the current permits. It is a cleaning station for hammerheads and hosts large colonies of white tip sharks and marble rays.