Dozens of animals, some on land but many in the ocean, can produce light within their bodies through chemical reactions. Scientists are still trying to understand when and why this trait developed.
New research shows climate change can drive sudden ocean cooling too. This can have devastating effects on marine life such as bull sharks and manta rays.
There’s so much we still don’t know about whales. Here’s 3 amazing new things we’ve learnt about whales lately: how humpback whales have sex and give birth – and how baleen whales sing underwater.
Healthy corals like these on Australia’s Lady Elliot Reef could disappear by the 2030s if climate change is not curbed.
Rebecca Spindler
Just as the world’s zoos breed critically endangered animals in captivity to repopulate the wild, scientists are building a global effort to freeze corals for reef restoration.
The habitats used throughout the halibut’s life and the movements between them are difficult to characterize.
(Charlotte Gauthier)
Atlantic halibut are making a strong comeback in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But how do we know where the fish move throughout their lives?
Endangered North Atlantic right whale Snow Cone, entangled in fishing rope, with her newborn calf off Georgia in 2021.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources/NOAA Permit #21731, via AP
Even when female North Atlantic right whales survive entanglement in fishing gear, it may affect their future ability to breed, increasing the pressure on this critically endangered species.
The characteristic hammer-shaped head is just becoming visible in this image of an embryonic bonnethead shark. Scale bar = 1 cm.
Steven Byrum and Gareth Fraser, Department of Biology, University of Florida
Because hammerhead sharks give birth to live young, studying their embryonic development is much more complicated than harvesting some eggs and watching them develop in real time.
A paleontologist wears a T-shirt showing Strophodus rebecae, a shark species with flat teeth that lived millions of years ago.
Juan Pablo Pino/AFP via Getty Images
‘Jaws,’ published in 1974, terrified the public of sharks, but it also brought shark research into the scientific mainstream.
The bow of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Duane, a decommissioned ship deliberately sunk off Florida to serve as an artificial reef.
Stephen Frink via Getty Images
Artificial reefs are structures that humans put in place underwater that create habitat for sea life. A new study shows for the first time how much of the US ocean floor they cover.
Rather than a tracking tag telling scientists where this shark traveled, its violent removal let them observe an unexpected regeneration process.
Josh Schellenberg
After scientists’ GPS tracking tag was violently removed from one shark’s dorsal fin, they were in for a surprise: The wound didn’t just heal, but the missing tissue grew back.
Fish swim in a reef at Pearl and Hermes Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
AP Photo/Jacob Asher
Researchers are finding alarming concentrations of persistent pollutants such as PFAS in Australian dolphins. These record-breaking levels are cause for concern.
The majestic St. Lawrence River, a jewel of economic, historical and environmental importance, reminds us of the need to preserve this essential ecosystem.
(Ludovic Pascal)
The waters of the St. Lawrence are running out of breath and bottom-dwelling organisms are already feeling the effects. Here’s how ecosystems are reacting.
A row of monopiles that will be the base for offshore wind turbines, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
David L Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
A recent study focusing on how offshore wind farms in Massachusetts waters could affect endangered right whales does not call for slowing the projects, but says monitoring will be critical.