Ocean

Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth. This is the latest on protecting their vast ecosystems.

Latest in Ocean

Concept art of cyborg jellyfish with forebody attachments
Animals

Hat-wearing cyborg jellyfish could one day explore the ocean depths

By Andrew Paul

A potentially new squid species found off the coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Animals

New squid alert! 100+ species discovered off the coast of New Zealand

By Laura Baisas

fish swimming by a healthy coral reef
Animals

Sandy ‘Reef Stars’ help bring life back to coral reefs hurt by dynamite fishing

By Laura Baisas

a deep sea worm with feathery appendages
Animals

Newly discovered deep-sea worm moves like a ‘living magic carpet’

By Laura Baisas

An orca whale hunts a great white shark. Blood is seen near the orca's mouth.
Animals

Orca observed hunting and killing a great white shark by itself for the first time

By Laura Baisas

An orange Chaunacops fish swimming in the waters of Chile’s Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park.
Animals

See the strange new species discovered near Chile—with the help of a deep-diving sea robot

By Laura Baisas

Sea cucumbers and fish feeding at a coral reef.
Animals

Sea cucumbers are the ‘scum suckers’ corals desperately need

By Laura Baisas

a school of sardines swarms the mouth of a whale
Conservation

Dive into 11 remarkable images from the 2024 Underwater Photographer of the Year competition

By Annie Colbert

A single humpback whale calf swimming in the waters off of French Polynesia.
Animals

We finally know how baleen whales make noise

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.
Animals

Close to half of migratory species are in serious decline: UN report

By Laura Baisas

Anchovy sex is a force of nature
Animals

Anchovy sex is a force of nature

By Christina Couch / Hakai Magazine

NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite launches aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Fire and smoke are below the spacecraft as it lifts off from the launch pad.
Climate Change

NASA’s PACE satellite takes off to monitor phytoplankton—from space

By Laura Baisas

The St. George’s Cross medusa is about four inches wide, three inches long, and has about 240 tentacles. It has a red cross on its body when viewed from above.
Animals

New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom

By Laura Baisas

A sea otter resting in a kelp bed in Monterey Bay, California.
Animals

Sea otters can help conserve vital kelp forests

By Laura Baisas

The bow of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Duane, a decommissioned ship deliberately sunk off Florida to serve as an artificial reef.
Conservation

Not all underwater reefs are made of coral

By Avery Paxton and D’amy Steward / The Conversation

Dense thickets of the reef-building coral Desmophyllum pertusum make up most of the deep-sea coral reef habitat found on the Blake Plateau in the Atlantic Ocean. The white coloring is healthy–deep-sea corals don’t rely on symbiotic algae, so they can’t bleach. Images of these corals were taken during a 2019 expedition dive off the coast of Florida.
Biology

World’s largest known deep-sea coral reef is bigger than Vermont

By Laura Baisas

Data visualization of all maritime activity in the North Sea
AI

AI and satellite data helped uncover the ocean’s ‘dark vessels’

By Andrew Paul

Waves on the ocean.
Climate Change

Warming oceans could thaw trapped ‘fire-ice’

By Laura Baisas

Broadclub Cuttlefish
Animals

Cuttlefish and their amazing technicolor dreamcoats

By Olivia Ferrari / Hakai Magazine

Dolphins that learn to approach people for an easy meal will often hang around fishing boats.
Conservation

Stop feeding the dolphins—seriously

By Emily Harwitz / Hakai Magazine

A bioluminescent sea cucumber called Scotoplanes or the “sea pig.”
Animals

Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow

By Laura Baisas

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs
Conservation

How frozen baby corals and high-powered lasers could help dying reefs

By Brent M. Foster / Hakai Magazine

Kelp holds a timeline of Earth’s history
Climate Change

Kelp holds a timeline of Earth’s history

By Bill Morris / Hakai Magazine

A baby loggerhead turtle pokes out of a shell on the sand. Its head and front flippers are out of the shell, with the lower half remaining inside.
Animals

Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks

By Laura Baisas

AlgaRay robot floating atop water in Antigua
Animals

This seafaring robot ‘eats’ stinky seaweed and dumps it in deep water

By Andrew Paul

Orsted offshore wind turbines in the UK
Conservation

Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains

By Andrew Paul

A Secchi Disk and a measuring tape on a gray wooden floating pier next to a moored boat.
Climate Change

You can help measure the ocean’s health with this homemade gadget

By Alisha McDarris

Two US Coast Guard officials handling remains of OceanGate Titan submersible
Conservation

What the US Coast Guard found on their last OceanGate Titan salvage mission

By Andrew Paul

An underwater closeup of Cayo margarita (a new species) in the coral reef of the Florida Keys. Note the two long tentacles, used by the snail to spread the mucus net for feeding.
Animals

New neon-yellow snail from the Florida Keys gets a happy hour-ready name

By Laura Baisas

Oyster-inspired sponges can scoop up nearly invisible nanoplastics in the ocean
Climate Change

Oyster-inspired sponges can scoop up nearly invisible nanoplastics in the ocean

By Chris Baraniuk / Hakai Magazine

South Africa’s Missing sharks have been found
Animals

South Africa’s Missing sharks have been found

By David Shiffman / Hakai Magazine

Why some clownfish are growing up too quickly
Animals

Why some clownfish are growing up too quickly

By Elizabeth Landau / Hakai Magazine

Manatee in a patch of sunlight
Animals

Sea the beauty of the world’s oceans with these 12 award-worthy photos

By Popular Science Team

Pacific Ocean storm seen from a research vessel's stern
Climate Change

When climate change throws the Pacific off balance, the world’s weather follows

By Hannah Seo

Plastic fishing gear brings in a better catch, but there’s a big tradeoff
Animals

Plastic fishing gear brings in a better catch, but there’s a big tradeoff

By Alastair Bland/Hakai Magazine

Revo Foods 3D-printed salmon
Animals

The world’s first 3D-printed salmon is hitting store shelves, and it looks kind of good

By Andrew Paul

An orca whale swims around an ice flow with a crabeater seal and penguin on the ice.
Animals

New series offers an intimate look into how climate change impacts the lives of wildlife

By Laura Baisas

MIT Van Atta Backscatter array closeup
Conservation

This new subsea communications system can run on an iota of power

By Andrew Paul

An eruption emerges from the ocean in a cloud of ash and a lightning strike.
Conservation

The Tonga volcanic eruption reshaped the seafloor in mind-boggling ways

By Rahul Rao

Sunset over pacific ocean
Climate Change

The Pacific heat blob’s aftereffects are still warping ocean ecosystems

By Ethan Freedman/Hakai Magazine

Coral reef with a variety of hard and soft corals and tropical fish
Conservation

Scientists are intentionally bleaching and ‘cryopreserving’ coral

By Andrew Paul

Two Emperor penguin chicks standing on sea ice in Antarctica.
Animals

Emperor penguins suffer ‘unprecedented’ breeding failure as sea ice disappears

By Laura Baisas

A coral reef just off of an island in Palau. Coral reefs in Palau provide critical habitats for a number of species and provide a storm barrier.
Animals

Some Pacific coral reefs can keep pace with a warming ocean

By Laura Baisas

Elkhorn coral fragments in lab
Animals

The heroic effort to save Florida’s coral reef from a historic heatwave

By Michael Childress/The Conversation

A many tentacled feather star.
Animals

Behold a 20-armed, strawberry-shaped Antarctic sea creature

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Four bivalve species found along the Maine coast, including the Northern Quahog, Eastern Oyster, a steamer clam, and a blue mussel presented together in a bed of seaweed at low tide.
Animals

Popular shellfish resist extinction in surprising ways

By Laura Baisas

Two penguins and a seal on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Climate Change

Antarctica is in the climate change crosshairs

By Laura Baisas

Giant yellow dump truck depositing sand on San Francisco beach because of coastal erosion
Climate Change

Why your favorite beach might be eroding

By Zayna Syed

A long and skinny silver trumpetfish uses a colorful parrotfish as camouflage.
Animals

Trumpetfish use other fish as camouflage

By Laura Baisas

Crab in ocean reaching with pincher.
Animals

As oceans become more acidic, creatures could struggle to smell

By Ethan Freedman/Hakai Magazine

Porites rus corals and scuba diver
Animals

Coral is reproducing in broad daylight

By Chloe Glad/Hakai Magazine

Swimmers walk out of the water after an evening swim on a beach in Avarua on Rarotonga, the largest Island in the Cook Islands.
Conservation

The Cook Islands appear to embrace deep-sea mining—but at what risk?

By Rachel Reeves/Hakai Magazine

Dead elkhorn coral at Sombrero Reef in the Florida Keys. The white areas are bleached coral, the brownish orange patches are "tissue slough", coral tissue that has died before it has a chance to bleach.
Biology

Mass coral reef bleaching in Florida as ocean temperatures hit 100 degrees

By Laura Baisas

deep sea bubbles
Animals

The key to bringing deep sea samples up to the coast? An underwater freezer.

By Annie Roth / Hakai Magazine

American actor Richard Dreyfuss (left) (as marine biologist Hooper) and British author and actor Robert Shaw (as shark fisherman Quint) look off the stern of Quint's fishing boat the 'Orca' at the terrifying approach of the mechanical giant shark dubbed 'Bruce' in a scene from the film 'Jaws' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975.
Animals

Why the creators of ‘Jaws’ regretted making sharks the monsters

By Laura Baisas

Person holds "SOS!! Pacific Ocean!" sign at Fukushima water release protest.
Conservation

Japan’s plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant is actually pretty safe

By Andrew Paul

Pair of bluefin tuna strung up on a fishing crane on the coast of Spain
Animals

Who caught the first bluefin tuna?

By Karen Pinchin

A green sea turtle swims in the ocean.
Animals

Hungry green sea turtles have eaten in the same seagrass meadows for about 3,000 years

By Laura Baisas

Ocean waves crashing.
Animals

How climate change is pushing oxygen out of the world’s oceans

By Carla Delgado

An image of the northern Gulf of Mexico created from remote-sensing reflectance and chlorophyll measurements taken from newly reprocessed VIIRS data. Green water is seen closer to the coast, while it gets darker and more blue further out.
Climate Change

Scientists say the ocean is changing color—and it’s probably our fault

By Laura Baisas

A banded sea snake swimming freely
Animals

Some sea snakes may not be colorblind after all

By Laura Baisas

A large group of shells on a beach. Organisms with hard, durable parts, like shells, are more likely to be preserved as fossils than organisms composed entirely of soft tissue.
Animals

The fossil record holds clues about modern-day marine ecology

By Laura Baisas

Octopuses brooding near hydrothermal vents deep under water. The 19-day Octopus Odyssey expedition located a site of low temperature (7oC) hydrothermal venting with brooding octopus on an unnamed outcrop that was explored for the very first time on this trip.
Animals

New species of inkless octopus may have been found in Costa Rica’s deep seas

By Laura Baisas

Common bottlenose dolphins swimming in Coffee Bay in South Africa.
Animals

Drones are following dolphins to spy on their complex social lives

By Laura Baisas

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