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Nov 19 2012 - 10:49am
Isopods (small, shrimp-like animals) like this one (Gnathia aureusmaculosa) are the mosquitoes of the sea, sucking the blood of fish while they sleep. Find out more in "No Fouling Around" from the Citizens of the Sea blog series.
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May 30 2012 - 11:45am
Hermit crabs, like this one collected in Moorea, usually protect their soft, vulnerable abdomens from predators by reusing empty snail shells. They are picky home owners and they will trade shells with other crabs to get a better fit or a less damaged shell. This specimen shows the crab...
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Feb 7 2011 - 8:02pm
What can students do to help the ocean? It turns out, a lot! These students from California are among dozens from the U.S. and Mexico who are developing action plans on ocean and climate-related issues in their local communities. They’re getting advice from their teachers and experts at aquariums...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
A male mudflat fiddler crab (Uca rapax) waves its huge claw to impress females and threaten male competitors. More about the animals and plants living in mangrove ecosystems can be found in the Mangroves section.
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Dec 8 2009 - 11:51am
For being so big, right whales eat very small food, which they catch using baleen. Baleen is the series of fringed plates hanging in right whales' mouths that are used to strain seawater for food. Until the early 1900's, right whales were heavily hunted primarily for their fatty blubber, which...
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Apr 23 2013 - 10:07am
The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is one of the most important commercial species in the United States, especially in the Chesapeake Bay region on the Mid-Atlantic coast.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
This close-up photo of a right whale's head shows dozens of hitchhikers—tiny crustaceans known as whale lice, or cyamid amphipods. They live on the rough patches of skin (known as callosities) on North Atlantic right whales, eating algae that settles there and only causing minor skin damage....
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Jul 27 2011 - 11:45am
Scientist Martha Nizinski holds a squat lobster (Eumunida picta) collected at the Lophelia reefs off Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Squat lobsters are extremely abundant there and are usually found perched on top of coral mounds. Nizinski’s research has provided a better understanding of the...
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Feb 11 2013 - 10:17am
This swimming crab (Liocarcinus holsatus) has a parasitic barnacle rooted in its reproductive system. This invasion cuts off all reproduction for an infected crab and can even cause a male crab to change behavior — males don't normally take care of crab eggs, but the infected male will take care of...
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Mar 27 2013 - 1:37pm
Hopefully you've never bitten into a delicious hunk of snow crab meat and instantly spit it out because instead of crab you tasted... aspirin?! If you have, it might have been crab meat infected with a species of Hematodinium, a parasitic dinoflagellate that is the cause of Bitter Crab Disease in...
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Aug 10 2012 - 3:47pm
When this tusk shell was brought up it was a surprise when a hermit crab poked out. Notice the large, operculate-shaped claw that this hermit can use to tightly cover the shell opening when it retracts into the shell. Dr. Rafael Lemaitre, NMNH curator of decapod Crustacea, has identified this...
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Dec 8 2010 - 12:54pm
Scientists met the robotic glider Scarlet Knight about halfway along its journey of scientific exploration from the United States to Spain, discovering that barnacles were growing on the glider’s body, as this graphic illustrates. As algae began to grow on the glider’s exterior surface, small sea...
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Jan 6 2011 - 3:36pm
Several species of amphipod like this one, Gammarus wilkitzkii, live permanently within Arctic sea ice. These animals are endemic, meaning they only live here. They acclimate to a wide range of salt levels in the water using a physiological response called osmoregulation.
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Nov 18 2010 - 6:07pm
Alaskan king crab fisheries are on the rebound after years of unsustainable exploitation. New regulations mean that immediately after a haul is brought on board, the crabs are sorted and all females and under-sized crabs are released.
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Jan 6 2011 - 1:28pm
This species of amphipod, Eusirus holmii, was found both at the surface of Arctic waters and as deep as 2000 meters (6562 feet). Researchers have found that while the amphipod inhabits the sea ice, the water column, and the sea floor, it is generally found in deep-basin waters.
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May 30 2012 - 12:38pm
The open ocean is surprisingly barren to the naked eye. Every now and again you will encounter a school of fish and their attendant predators, but most of the life that you find is gathered around some sort of sheltering structure like a coral reef.
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Jan 22 2013 - 10:53am
This tiny, shrimplike creature is no more than 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) long, but it’s as ferocious as a shark. Its giant eyes spot prey. Huge claws grab the prey, and a tiny mouth rips it to shreds. The prey never sees what’s coming, because Phronima’s transparent body blends into the surrounding...
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May 16 2013 - 9:04am
In this video Smithsonian research zoologist Dr. Martha Nizinski takes viewers with her as she searches for crustaceans in the deep sea. She's particularly interested in finding squat lobsters, which despite their name, are actually crabs. On this dive in the waters off Curaçao, she discovers some...
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Dec 19 2011 - 2:48pm
A coral hermit crab, Paguritta harmsi, about the size of two grains of rice, living in coral in the waters of Japan's Ogasawara Islands.
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May 21 2012 - 4:06pm
One of the most common inhabitants of the sargassum community, the shrimp Latreutes fucorum (Hippolytidae) is perfectly colored to hide on the leaf-like blades.
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Jul 9 2010 - 1:22pm
The waters of New Guinea teemed with exotic fishes and crabs, which were faithfully depicted by William Dampier’s artist. When Dampier’s book A Voyage to New Holland was published in 1703, illustrations like these—along with Dampier’s vivid prose—introduced enthusiastic readers to plants, birds,...
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Sep 27 2012 - 9:45am
A mangrove tree crab (Aratus pisonii) clings to a leaf near the Smithsonian Institution’s marine laboratory on Galeta Island, Panama, part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
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Dec 27 2010 - 1:45pm
Home is where the hull is: Since the dawn of seafaring, humankind has had to deal with pesky creatures, such as barnacles, that “foul” ship hulls and boat propellers like this one. Find out more in "No Fouling Around" from the Citizens of the Sea blog series.
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Jun 6 2011 - 12:11pm
A squat lobster and blackbelly rosefish find shelter on a Lophelia pertusa coral reef off the southeastern United States. The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible captured this image in 2009.
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