Ocean (Page 3)

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

Latest in Ocean

Looking from the stern of the ship as it tows the long horizontal array of hydrophones. The tow cable can be seen going through the metal horn at the stern. The hydrophone array is several hundred meters behind the ship and about 200 meters deep. Credit: Ross Chapman

New theory explains mysterious ocean quacking first heard in the 1960s

bottlenose dolphin screaming

A lone dolphin has been yelling into Baltic Sea for years

By Mack DeGeurin

A mother and calf West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) in Crystal River, Florida.

Florida’s famous manatees were originally tourists

By Laura Baisas

An eye and arms of an octopus. The small dots visible around the eye are the chromatophores.

For octopuses, changing colors is hard work

By Lauren Leffer

A diver from National Geographic Pristine Seas measures the world’s largest coral colony in the Solomon Islands.

World’s largest coral discovered and it’s longer than a blue whale

By Laura Baisas

a colorful coral reef with fish swimming above it

Chlorine and cocoa butter may help disease-ridden corals

By Laura Baisas

a new mollusc with a hood over its head

New deep-sea slug catches crustaceans like a Venus fly trap

By Laura Baisas

two sperm whales singing

New method for finding sperm whales kind of works like a rideshare app

By Laura Baisas

A photograph showing two big and two little Pyrocystis noctiluca.

Why these plankton puff up to 6x bigger than normal

By Laura Baisas

USS Stewart bow shipwreck with barnacles and crabs

‘Ghost Ship of the Pacific’ rediscovered with underwater drones

glass bowl filled with brown seaweed

Bye, kale: Marine scientists want you to eat more seaweed

By Alisha McDarris

Video screenshot of piece of OceanGate Titan wreckage

The OceanGate Titan implosion left a 30,000-square-meter debris field

Scientists observed two bowhead whales synchronizing dive schedules whenever they were within earshot of each other.

Whales may be communicating across vast distances

By Joanna Thompson / Hakai Magazine

Caption: An octopus cyanea hunting with a blacktip grouper on one side and a gold-saddle goatfish (‘blue goatfish’) on the other.

Octopus and fish join forces to hunt together

By Lauren Leffer

A panoramic sand dune of sahara desert at Mhamid el Ghizlane in Morocco wide shot.

Saharan dust sustains life all over the Atlantic Ocean

a wave rising up from a flat sea

Extreme 3D ocean waves can reach heights 4x steeper than previously thought

By Laura Baisas

a Byrde's whale surfaces to breathe in the Pacific Ocean

Elusive whale’s vocalization could be their version of ‘Marco Polo’

By Laura Baisas

a red fish with a grumpy expression and large teeth

Seriously grumpy-faced fish discovered in Red Sea

By Laura Baisas

Germany’s North and Baltic Seas are littered with munitions from the First and Second World Wars, such as shells—as shown here—once fired from German battleships.

The big Baltic bomb cleanup

By Paul Hockenos / Hakai Magazine

a whale surfaces next to a large fishing trawler

Whales need krill to survive. We want it for supplements.

By Laura Baisas

Titanic bow wreckage underwater

The famous railing from ‘Titanic’ has broken off from Titanic

a small white and red squid

New images of deep sea wonders are surprisingly adorable

By Laura Baisas

Closeup of yellow and green fishing net

The long road to ropeless fishing

By Moira Donovan / Hakai Magazine

Port Jackson sharks sleeping on the seafloor at Beagle Marine Park.

Watch a huge ‘No Boys Allowed’ shark slumber party

By Laura Baisas

Colorful atlantic puffin sitting on a cliff

In Iceland, humans throwing baby puffins is a good thing

By Alisha McDarris

The newly discovered Paragonaster hoeimaruae. There are many types of starfish and this one is particularly adapted to living in sandy, muddy waters, a feature the researchers want to learn more about.

New, vibrant starfish discovered in Japan

By Laura Baisas

two sea lions swim in blue water, with their heads above the water

Sea lion camera crews help scientists map unexplored seabeds

By Laura Baisas

a walrus calf with a cut on its right eye is cared for by two technicians

Abandoned Pacific walrus calf rescued in Alaska

By Laura Baisas

Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) breaching ocean in an attack.

Sharks are testing positive for cocaine

Polymetallic nodules scattered across bottom of the ocean floor

‘Dark oxygen’ on ocean floor may rewrite Earth’s origins of life

a small grey and black reef fish swims

Fish in Earth’s hottest water defy the odds

By Laura Baisas

Five of the comb jelly species featured in a new study on how their cells adapt to water pressures. Red coloration as seen in the two specimens at right is common among deep-sea animals.

Comb jellies won’t give into the extreme pressures of deep-sea life

By Laura Baisas

a marine biologist and an actor fist bump while sitting on a dive boat in the ocean

Actor Anthony Mackie and marine biologist Jasmin Graham talk sharks

By Laura Baisas

Golden Anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis) in the Red Sea, Egypt

Mass extinction 183 million years ago offers dire warning for modern oceans

Ocean trash can now be tracked from space

OceanXplorers sub

Watch the exclusive trailer premiere for James Cameron’s new ‘OceanXplorers’ series

Underwater image of Titanic wreckage

Billionaire plans to ride $20 million submersible to the Titanic

coral polyps before spawning

Scientists are studying the mysterious sex lives of coral

By Laura Baisas

This noble necklace worm, laden with eggs, will eventually release her developed larvae into the water column as plankton.

Stunning images offer a peek into the ocean’s microscopic baby boom

Text by Kelly Fretwell and Adrienne Mason / Hakai Magazine, Photos by Hakai Institute

seaweed underwater

What the heck is seaweed mining?

By Moira Donovan / Hakai Magazine

How deep does life go?

By James Lawrence Powell / MIT Press Reader

a bioluminescent coral shaped like a fan with a central hub

Bioluminescence may have evolved 300 million years earlier than scientists previously thought

By Laura Baisas

Can green hydrogen production help bring oceanic dead zones back to life?

By Brian Owens / Hakai Magazine

Cargo Ship in Panama Canal

A new solution proposed for drought-stricken Panama Canal goes around it

a close-up of an octopus eye

Why counting octopus ‘rings’ is crucial

By Laura Baisas

two men in scuba gear install a sound system by a coral reef

Healthy reef soundscapes can help degraded coral reefs grow

By Laura Baisas

several small and translucent glass eels on a yellow cloth

How citizen scientists are protecting ‘glass eels’

By Laura Baisas

Concept art of cyborg jellyfish with forebody attachments

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

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

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

By Laura Baisas

fish swimming by a healthy coral reef

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

By Laura Baisas

a deep sea worm with feathery appendages

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.

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.

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.

Sea cucumbers are the ‘scum suckers’ corals desperately need

By Laura Baisas

a school of sardines swarms the mouth of a whale

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.

We finally know how baleen whales make noise

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.

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

By Laura Baisas

Anchovy sex is a force of nature

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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