North Atlantic right whales are living the plot of a science fiction story: They are not having any babies. With the end of the winter calving season just around the corner, so far zero newborns have been spotted. With fewer than 450 of the whales remaining, and around 100 breeding females, this reproductive drought…
Shortfin mako sharks may be the fastest-swimming shark in the ocean, with top speeds of over 45 miles per hour. Unfortunately, with a 15-18 month gestation period, these sharks aren’t anywhere near as quick when it comes to reproducing. Mako sharks are also some of the best tasting sharks on the planet. This…
The year 2020 is rapidly approaching, and with it comes a deadline for ocean protection.
Straws are becoming controversial. Long overlooked as a waste source, perhaps because of the way they defy categorization, single-use straws are now drawing the ire of the environmental community, and policymakers are starting to take note.
Slow waves meander westward out in the deep ocean south of Australia. Sometimes they carry with them carry large eddies, whirlpools over 100 miles across. But every so often, these whirlpools combine into double whirlpools and travel across the ocean 10 times faster than the rest of the whirlpools, moving in sync for…
Okay, so technically they’re not GIFs, but “cinemagraphs,” short, seamlessly repeating videos. Either way, these incredible loops of dramatic waves from Ray Collins and Armand Dijcks are endlessly soothing. Just watch and watch and watch and forget that the Earth will soon be one giant ocean.
If there’s one thing on Earth we don’t know enough about, it’s the ocean. We’ve only mapped around five percent of the seafloor, and two-thirds of the ocean’s animal species might remain undiscovered. It shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re only now able to create detailed maps of the seafloor—but that doesn’t stop each…
Fangblennies are tiny reef-dwelling fish only two inches long that look like they came from some adorable deep-sea vampire movie. Only, if you’re a predator and you piss them off, they will wreck the shit out of you with their opioid-laced venom.
Asteroid mining has gained steam in the popular psyche: who doesn’t love the idea of flying up to one of the giant rocks flying by and somehow harvesting it of its precious metals like platinum. But today at the 2017 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences, scientists considered whether…
We already knew the deep ocean is full of nightmare creatures—twisted amalgams of tooth, jaw and fin sprung to life from some tortured corner of the multiverse. But good news—it gets even weirder! Scientists have just learned that one deep sea predator has a flexible attachment between its head and its skull that…
Don’t interrupt an octopus while it’s eating and don’t you dare point your camera at it because the octopus ain’t having it. In fact, the super villain creature of the ocean will try to intimidate you when you do that because it’ll charge at you, stare you down, and then inflate itself like a giant parachute so it…
Over thirteen thousand feet below the surface, hundred-foot hydrothermal vents spew black, 690 degree fluid like chimneys from the ocean floor. Tiny crabs, shrimp and limpets scuttle beneath the smokestacks, and a remotely-operated vehicle named SuBastian went down there recently to join them.
Damn, the ocean isn’t here to play around. This worm, known as a sand striker, buries itself in the ground and can grow up to twice the length of a human. It has no eyes and no brain and yet it can snatch the body and soul (and everything else) of a fish from right out of the ground. It’s like a terrifying death…
Hot damn. A snorkeler in Hawaii stumbled on this underwater scrap between an octopus and a terrifying moray eel and it looks like it’s going to be a tangled fight to death. The moray eel looks like it has the clear advantage because, well, it’s a big ass bully with the octopus in its jaws but after a few whips around,…
The ocean is chock full of incredibly weird creatures that couldn’t possibly exist anywhere but under the sea. Like the crinoid, more commonly known as the feather star, which uses countless flapping arms to propel itself through the water—but that’s not the weirdest part.
