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May 10 2013 - 9:27am
The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) breeds mainly in Hawaii and other Pacific islands where male and female pairs will incubate their egg for nine weeks. The pair participates in an elaborate courtship dance where movements and noises bond them together for the rest of their lives. After...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
These newly hatched squid larvae (Doryteuthis plei) are tinier than the head of a dissecting pin, which is even smaller than a common sewing pin. More about the giant squid can be found in our Giant Squid featured story.
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Aug 10 2012 - 3:27pm
This purple urchin Paleopneustes cristatus is seldom seen by itself, and can be found in groups of hundreds. Dr. Dave Pawson, a senior scientist at NMNH who studies deep-sea echinoderms, is testing if the fertilized eggs of this urchin sink or are buoyant, an important question in...
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May 10 2013 - 2:47pm
Laysan albatrosses (Phoebastria immutabilis) are incredible birds. They have a wingspan of more than 6 feet, soaring vast distances without flapping their wings.
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Jul 30 2012 - 10:31am
Male fiddler crabs, like this one collected on Moorea, wave their enlarged claw as way of signaling to other crabs, especially during mating season. Learn more about the Island of Moorea in the Pacific Ocean, including its biodiversity and the scientific effort to catalog all the life found on its...
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Mar 15 2013 - 9:07am
Corals are sedentery animals, so how do they reproduce? One way is sexually through spawning, when the corals release eggs and sperm into the water (often at the same time due to some sort of trigger). External sexual reproduction occurs when colonies of coral release huge numbers of eggs and sperm...
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Nov 6 2012 - 10:38am
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) have something in common with humans: early menopause. Read Smithsonian marine scientist Nancy Knowlton's blog post to find out more.
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Apr 9 2013 - 9:46am
Instead of females, male seahorses carry the developing seahorse embryos in a kangaroo-like pouch. During mating season, the female deposits her eggs into the pouch, and the male fertilizes them. After about two weeks of development, out pop the seahorse fry, ready to swim off and explore the ocean...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:46am
What are corals? Corals themselves are animals. But tropical reef-building corals have tiny plant-like organisms living in their tissue. The corals couldn’t survive without these microscopic algae–called zooxanthellae (zo-zan-THELL-ee). This cutaway diagram of a coral polyp shows where the...
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Jun 14 2011 - 2:43pm
If youngsters get cared for at all, the mother is usually involved. But in fish and a few other groups where eggs are not abandoned, fathers are the primary care providers. Males are sometimes such devoted dads that it takes longer for them to care for the young than it does for the females to...
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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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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
In 1996, at age nine, Phoenix has her first calf (North Atlantic right whale #2605) off the southeast coast of Florida. More about the right whale can be found in our Tale of a Whale featured story.
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Jun 21 2011 - 1:58pm
“Every four years, sockeyes come inland from the Pacific to spawn. The year 2010 was the largest run in 100 years, reaching more than 30 million fish. On this day, I waited for the right sunlight, then quietly slipped into the river. Fighting the rush of the current, I positioned myself in front of...
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Oct 8 2012 - 12:58pm
A coral (Montastraea faveolata) has just spawned. Each of the hundreds of polyps living in the colony releases a small pink bundle of sperm and eggs. Read more about coral spawing and watch a spawning event.
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Jan 2 2013 - 1:01pm
By Lindsay Aylesworth, Project Seahorse
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May 11 2012 - 3:34pm
This snapping shrimp female (Synalpheus regalis) is the queen of her colony which means she is the only female to have babies. She stores her clutch of eggs under her abdomen until they hatch - some of the eggs have already developed eyes. Similar to other social animals like ants and bees, non-...
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May 16 2012 - 12:20pm
Male northern elephant seals face off on the beach by vocalizing through their extended noses, called proboscises. Every winter, when the seals return to the beach where they were born to breed, males arrive first to tussle for territory. The winners of these fights are the "alpha" males, and they...
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Jan 10 2013 - 10:47am
Sharks have young in three different ways. After internal fertilization, some species lay a thick egg case that encloses the shark embryo (seen in the photo here). Most species are ovoviviparous, which means that the shark hatches and develops within the female shark and is born live. A third way (...
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Oct 20 2010 - 7:59am
Welcome to Citizens of the Sea, a new blog series where ocean life comes to life. Our book by the same name came out in September, but no sooner had it gone off to the printer than new ocean stories started streaming in. So every other week, we’ll use this series to explore some interesting aspect...
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Feb 28 2013 - 3:37pm
Jellyfish and comb jellies are gelatinous animals that drift through the ocean's water column around the world. They are both beautiful—the jellyfish with their pulsating bells and long, trailing tentacles, and the comb jellies with their paddling combs generating rainbow-like colors. Yet though...
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Jul 24 2012 - 9:47pm
A gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) mother stands with her chick in Antarctica. When walking on land, gentoo penguins waddle with their long tails dragging behind them; but in the water, they are the fastest penguins of them all, reaching swimming speeds of 36 kilometers per hour (around 22 miles...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Phoenix swimming with her calf in February 2007 in the Southeast calving grounds off the coasts of Georgia and Florida. Researchers track these highly endangered whales (there are only about 450 of them left) very closely and use their skin markings to confirm sightings. The New England Aquarium...
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Dec 4 2012 - 3:02pm
Most wild seahorses (here the thorny seahorse Hippocampus histrix) are monogamous and some species mate for life. Searching for mates can be difficult and risky since seahorses are poor swimmers, found in low densities and rely on camouflage to hide from predators. By remaining faithful to one...
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Sep 12 2010 - 4:30pm
"Devoted Dads" spread from Citizens of the Sea by Nancy Knowlton.
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