Animal Crossing sea creatures guide – when, where and how to catch them in New Horizons

Stefan L 03/07/20 Comments Closed

With the Summer Update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, there’s a new twinkle in Blathers’ eye at the prospect of new discoveries to display in his finely curated museum. With all the swimming and diving going on, there’s a whole host of sea creatures for you to be able to collect and add to the fish tanks in the aquatic wing of the museum.

Now, he’s pretty up front about the fact that calling all of these new catches “creatures” is a bit of a stretch, but I doubt that eager collectors are really going to quibble with him about this point… So, here’s a guide on how to catch Animal Crossing sea creatures and all the new things to catch in the Summer Update.

We’ve got plenty of other walkthroughs and tips for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and more on the way. Visit our game hub to check those out.

How do you catch Animal Crossing Sea Creatures?

Unlike catching fish, you’re going to have to get wet to snag some sea creatures. While you’re swimming out in the ocean, keep an eye out for streams of bubbles coming from underwater. That’s the telltale sign of a sea creature lurking under the surface!

To catch the creature, swim over to it and tap Y to dive down below. This shifts the camera angle to a top-down view, where you’ll clearly see the shadow of the sea creature. You just need to tap A to swim into that shadow and you’ll resurface having grabbed the sea creature.

What Animal Crossing Sea Creatures can I catch?

There’s 40 Sea Creatures in the game following the Summer Update, but just like bugs and fish, they will appear in certain months and times of day. All of this is features in a new page on the Critterpedia.

Here’s all the sea creatures, the months and times of day you can catch them. All of the months refer to the Northern Hemisphere, with the Southern Hemisphere six months ahead (or behind?).

	Animal Crossing Sea Creature	Available Months	Time of Day
1	Seaweed	October-July	All Hours
2	Sea Grapes	June-September	All Hours
3	Sea Cucumber	November-April	All Hours
4	Sea Pig	November-February	4PM-9AM
5	Sea Star	All Year	All Hours
6	Sea Urchin	May-September	All Hours
7	Slate Pencil Urchin	May-September	4PM-9AM
8	Sea Anemone	All Year	All Hours
9	Moon Jellyfish	July-September	All Hours
10	Sea Slug	All Year	All Hours
11	Pearl Oyster	All Year	All Hours
12	Mussel	June-December	All Hours
13	Oyster	September-February	All Hours
14	Scallop	All Year	All Hours
15	Whelk	All Year	All Hours
16	Truban Shell	March-May, September-December	All Hours
17	Abalone	June-January	4PM-9AM
18	Gigas Giant Clam	May-September	All Hours
19	Chambered Nautilus	March-June, September-November	4PM-9AM
20	Octopus	All Year	All Hours
21	Umbrella Octopus	March-May, September-November	All Hours
22	Vampire Squid	May-August	4PM-9AM
23	Firefly Squid	March-June	9PM-4AM
24	Gazami Crab	June-November	All Hours
25	Dungesnes Crab	November-May	All Hours
26	Snow Crab	November-April	All Hours
27	Red King Crab	November-March	All Hours
28	Acorn Barnacle	All Year	All Hours
29	Spider Crab	March-April	All Hours
30	Tiger Prawn	June-September	4PM-9AM
31	Sweet Shrimp	September-February	4PM-9AM
32	Mantis Shrimp	All Year	4PM-9AM
33	Spiny Lobster	October-December	9PM-4AM
34	Lobster	April-June, December-January	All Hours
35	Giant Isopod	July-October	9AM-4PM, 9PM-4AM
36	Horseshoe Crab	July-September	9PM-4AM
37	Sea Pineapple	April-August	All Day
38	Spotted Garden Eel	May-October	4AM-9PM
39	Flatworm	August-September	4PM-9AM
40	Venus’ Flower Basket	October-February	All Hours

What’s so special about scallops?

Scallops aren’t that special… except that Pascal the Otter absolutely loves them! This is a new character in Animal Crossing: New Horizons who’ll appear every time you find a scallop and ask if you’d be so kind to give it to him.

Find out more about Pascal here, but don’t forget to give the first scallop to Blathers! That’s the rule!