Survey sampling occurred aboard the RV Investigator between 12 October and 6 November 2017 between 30 and 125 km offshore between Port Hedland and the Montebello Islands on the Pilbara section of the North West Shelf, Western Australia, in water depths of 25 m to 100 m.

Approximately 373 fish taxa from 89 families were identified.. The following families had the highest number of identified taxa: Carangidae (19 species), Apogonidae (17), Serranidae and Labridae (16 species), Lutjanidae, Monacanthidae, Nemipteridae and Scorpaenidae (12), Dasyatidae, Synodontidae and Platycephalidae (11) and Lethrinidae (10). Other diverse families included Gobiidae, Bothidae and Tetraodontidae (9), Chaetodontidae and Paralichthyidae (8), Mullidae, Muraenidae and Ostraciidae (7 each), and Syngnathidae (6 each). All other families had five or less species and 41 families were represented by a single species.

One hundred and thirty-three “soft coral” species (133) within the subclass Octocorallia, Order Alcyonacea were identified. The following families had the highest number of identified taxa: Plexauridae (58), Nephtheidae (13), Acanthogorgiidae (13), Ellisellidae (12) and Nidaliidae (10). All other families were represented by only a few species (1–9).

Voyage details (metadata, projects, other datasets either online or as downloads, publications and reports, events, maps etc) can be accessed at https://www.marine.csiro.au/data/trawler/survey_details.cfm?survey=IN2017_05

If this data has been used in any products, please acknowledge with the following: We acknowledge the use of the CSIRO Marine National Facility (https://ror.org/01mae9353) in undertaking this research.