Ocean

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

Latest in Ocean

A wide-angle, underwater photograph of a young sea lion with large, dark eyes and long whiskers looking directly into the camera lens. Sunlight beams down through the clear blue water, illuminating the sea lion's head and other sea lions swimming in the background. The foreground shows a rocky seabed covered in marine life, including several dark, spiny sea urchins.

How marine mammals stay hydrated in a salty sea

By Sara Kiley Watson

Adult bull shark ‘Chunky’ (foreground) parallel swimming with subadult female ‘Lady Lazarus’ (background).

Bull sharks make ‘friends’—and prefer females to males

By Laura Baisas

a blue whale swimming

Marine biologists spot rare blue whales off Massachusetts coast

By Margherita Bassi

A close-up photograph of a Halobates, an ocean water strider, resting on the surface of the water. The insect has a long, slender dark body and very thin, wire-like legs that create slight indentations on the water's surface tension. Its reflection is visible on the surface, and the background is a soft, out-of-focus light blue and white.

Do any bugs live in the ocean? Short answer: Not really.

By Andrew Coletti

a dolphin (left) and a more rounded porpoise (right)

Florida can’t decide if its official saltwater mammal is a dolphin or a porpoise

By Margherita Bassi

a dolphin swims in venice, italy

Humans pose the biggest risk to Venice’s celebrity dolphin

By Laura Baisas

Satellite image of southern tip of Florida showing bright blue waters off west coast caused by winter storm weather

NASA spots Florida’s ocean waters changing color

ROV pilots filmed this glass squid at 1,725 meters while exploring the Colorado-Rawson submarine canyon off the coast of Argentina. CREDIT: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute Due to our legal status as a 501(c)(3) private operating foundation, no media produced by Schmidt Ocean Institute may be used in attempting to influence legislation or lobbying. Additionally, all visual assets (Images, videos, etc) can only be used as stated by creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Marine biologists discover 28 new deep sea species—and an old VHS tape

a jellyfish with a red center, blue circle on the outer part of its body, and small tentavles

Perplexing blue button jelly looks like something out of ‘Lord of the Rings’

By Margherita Bassi

a mother whale and calf

2026 is off to a hopeful start for these critically endangered whales

By Margherita Bassi

three side by side images of a large jellyfish in a deep sea canyon

Giant phantom jellyfish spotted deep in Pacific

By Laura Baisas

A pink octopus squid floating upside down spotted by MBARI researchers

Dive into 2025’s most stunning deep-sea wildlife encounters

Denman Glacier in Antarctica

Underwater robot survives voyage to ‘never-accessed region of the planet’

This is a type of animal that is related to land spiders but does not belong to that group. They can grow to the size of a palm in the deep sea around Antarctica, but this particular species is only a few millimeters in size Photo: Natural History Museum, London & Göteborgs universitet

Deep sea mining test uncovered multiple new species

a bird with white and gray plummage

Rare seabird saved after swallowing four large fishhooks

By Laura Baisas

P. Mikazuki Portuguese Man O'War

Portuguese Man O’War species honors ‘One-Eyed Dragon’ samurai

a zombie worm, it is long and cylindrical with tentacles

Zombie worms have gone missing

By Laura Baisas

Screenshot of ROV video showing icefish nests on floor of Weddell Sea

The quest to find Shackleton’s ship uncovered an Antarctic mystery

a dolphin blowing bubbles under water

Dolphins may be getting an Alzheimer’s-like disease due to this neurotoxin

By Margherita Bassi

A red cusk-eel burrowed in among tubeworms at a methane seep off the coast of El Quisco in central Chile. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

Tiny spider crabs snack on parasites from Chile’s favorite fish