‘Every time the tide recedes, it’s a new world’: Mumbai’s marine life revealed

A group of sea life enthusiasts is documenting a wealth of species thriving in the shadow of India's most populous city, from glowing coral to octopuses

A hidden forest of algae sponges and hydroids photographed at low tide; a stunning night image of green button polyps under ultraviolet light; and a beautiful shot of a honeycomb moray eel stuck on a ledge on a rocky shore. Mumbai may be a bustling metropolis, but photographer Sarang Naik's aesthetic and vibrant images of marine life show a different side of the city.

When Naik first started exploring the coast of urban Mumbai, India's financial capital and home to Bollywood stars, he was astounded by the diversity of creatures that he came across - from hermit crabs, barnacles and a baby octopus to zoanthids (colourful disc-shaped relatives of coral) and prickly sea urchins. The intertidal zone or foreshore - where the land is exposed at low tide and is under water at high tide - is home to diverse marine life over different terrains, from mudflats to beaches and mangroves.

Clockwise from top: a honeycomb moray eel stranded at low tide at Breach Candy; a nudibranch sea slug on coralline algae; zoanthids glowing in UV Light at Malabar Hill rocky shore; squid babies inside an egg mass; an Elysia sea slug feeding on algae in a tide pool