All the news on the Earth's largest environment.

A comment on Reddit reminded me of a question that I have received many times. The question is always a good one because it stems from knowledge and deductive reasoning. The said question requires one ...

Megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon) is the largest shark, at a magnificent maximum length of 18 meters (59 feet), to ever have dwelled in the oceans. We know primarily about Megalodon’s existence ...

I have only seen a hydrothermal vent once, during Dive 73 aboard the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s Doc Ricketts. Unlike many deep-sea biologists, I have always been more interested in ...

Here’s a mystery: below 8,400 meters there are no fish. There are other creatures: sea cucumbers, anemones, tiny worms, but no one has ever seen a fish. At 8,370 meters? There are fish. But not below ...

Tiger sharks are sort of generalist feeders. And by generalist, I mean they will pretty much eat anything. And by everything, I mean everything. On the more natural side of things, tiger sharks eat ...

You will never see the Ninja Lanternshark coming, not because it’s dark and elusive, but because you won’t be swimming below 1,000 feet deep off the coast of Central America any time soon. The ...

Like most deep-sea biologists, I have a large collection of decorated Styrofoam cups. A couple dozen line the bookshelf of my office, each displaying a rainbow of Sharpie colors. Each cup is ...

Biologists have a habit of naming things after cool animals. Cars named after comb jellies, internet passwords after giant squid. Most of these names I recognized, but then I saw my friend’s wifi ...

All snails and their ancestors, the Gastropods, share a common feature. We people with fancy Ph.D.’s in biology call this a synapomorphy, a word derived from the Greek words for “together with”, “away ...

It all started with this Tweet. So, uh, I just learned that this is what a pufferfish skeleton looks like, and I think you all should know too pic.twitter.com ...

This oddly plumaged penguin appeared in my Antarctic & Arctic Data Consortium 2015 calendar (yes, I have a data calendar) and I needed to know…why on earth does this penguin have a fauxhawk? Image ...