Meribiologians

Meribiologians are researchers associated with meribiology, a term that appears mainly in speculative fiction and unofficial science discussions to describe the study of life linked to marine environments, including conventional marine organisms and, in some settings, mythical or hypothetical aquatic humanoids such as merfolk. There is no formally recognized discipline called meribiology in current academic curricula, and most real-world marine research falls under marine biology, oceanography, or related fields.

In fictional worlds, meribiologists examine taxonomy, physiology, behavior, ecology, and evolution of ocean-dwelling species, as well as any cultural or biological interactions with aquatic humanoids. Methods mirror real marine research—field observations, submersible or ROV expeditions, tissue sampling, imaging, genomic sequencing, and computational modeling—adapted to the scope of their imagined ecosystems.

Education often involves training in biology or earth sciences, with specialized courses or narrative lore for merfolk biology or xenobiology when relevant to the setting. Career roles include field researchers, academicians, conservationists, and advisors to exploration or storytelling projects.

Meribiology has appeared in various novels, games, and media as a device to explore biodiversity, human-ocean interactions, and mythic ocean life.