Underwater fish-list: Annual count and spring clean underway at Birmingham National Sea Life Centre - with pictures and video

In a bid to record every last creature - from the tiniest shrimp to the biggest shark - the animal care team are undertaking the task of logging every one of their creatures, of which there are more than 2,000 to count.

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This is done alongside the annual spring clean, where the team inspect and give more than 60 displays a deep clean ahead of the 2019 year.

"Over the year there have been so many fishy births and new displays developed that it’s crucial for us ensure we are keeping track of how many individual creatures and species we have," explains curator Jonny Rudd.

And it’s no easy task, especially as very few of the creatures are willing to stay still to be counted and many others are adept at hiding.

There’s a shoal of bannerfish swimming under visitors’ feet in the 360 ocean tunnel, rock-pools full of near-invisible shrimp, and flatfish which camouflage themselves against almost any background.

"To make the stock-take as accurate as possible we record our counts in special forms that list each separate creature and species," Jonny added.

"Once all the forms are in we’ll feed all the numbers in to a computer and take the ‘average’ total for each species".

The annual large-scale creature counting and deep clean display spruce-up continues for a fortnight.

"By repeating the exercise annually we’ll not only be ensuring that all our creatures’ habitats are at the prime conditions for their species," said Jonny.

"We’ll also get a more accurate record of breeding activity, as well as start to build up data on lifespans, growth-rates and many more aspects of the biology of each species.

"This understanding is crucial in the development of our conservation and breeding programmes, which are at the heart of what we do, and it provides a valuable educational insight to share with our visitors when they meet our large variety of creatures for themselves".