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Jan 27 2010 - 3:24pm
In Edgewater, Maryland, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center examine the influences of climate change, excess nutrients, and surrounding habitats on mangroves. They have also established additional study sites in mangrove forests in Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Saudi...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Smithsonian Zoologist Dr. Clyde Roper (rear) and museum specialist Mike Sweeney examine the mantle of a dead giant squid. Everything we know about giant squid comes from studying specimens found washed up on beaches, floating in the ocean, or caught in a fishing net.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:44am
Dr. Carole Baldwin is Curator of Fishes at the National Museum of Natural History. Read an interview with her about how she used DNA analysis and other tools to discover seven new species of fish in the museum's collections.
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Aug 14 2012 - 12:55pm
It’s an honor to have something or someone named after you. Dr. David Pawson, Senior Research Scientist and Curator of Echinoderms at NMNH, has several genera and species, living and fossil, named after him. He says this little sea star, Pawsonaster parvus, is by far the prettiest!
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Oct 23 2012 - 11:54am
A coral reef near Bocas del Toro, Panama recovers from a mass bleaching event that occurred in the summer of 2010. The tops contain some bleaching, but the sides look healthy. Smithsonian marine biologist Dr.
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Mar 12 2011 - 7:33pm
Starksia blennies, small coral reef fish, have been well-studied for more than 100 years. But Smithsonian scientists discovered that what were thought to be three species of the fish are actually 10 distinct species from the Caribbean. Dr. Carole Baldwin, a Smithsonian zoologist and curator of...
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May 11 2012 - 11:46am
Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, holds an arm bone from a "toothed" mysticete from Vancouver Island. This is the second specimen found at this locality on the remote western side of Vancouver Island. Nick used a rock saw to...
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Aug 20 2012 - 10:42am
This is an unidentified moray eel, collected from 650 feet off the coast of Curacao. Morays are very secretive animals that tend to stay hidden in caves and crevices. Researchers with the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP) don't yet know if this is a young eel, or a small full-grown one.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Smithsonian squid expert Dr. Clyde Roper collaborated with National Geographic to attach this Crittercam to the head of a sperm whale, hoping to get footage of the whale’s favorite prey—giant squid. At left is the Crittercam’s inventor, Greg Marshall, of National Geographic. At right is British...
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Sep 9 2011 - 6:05pm
Smithsonian surveys along the lower north shore of Hare Harbor in Quebec, Canada have revealed evidence of a long history of Native American occupation, beginning with the Maritime Archaic Indian culture beginning 8000 years ago. Their later descendants of 3,500 years ago built longhouses with...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Dr. Clyde Roper (top left), of the Smithsonian Institution, and scientists from NOAA and the Delaware Museum of Natural History dissect a giant squid specimen donated by NOAA. Everything we know about the biology of giant squid comes from dissecting and studying dead specimens.
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Sep 30 2011 - 6:38am
Smithsonian curator of fossil marine mammals Nick Pyenson and a team of collaborators are heading into Chile's Atacama Desert, shown here. They'll study a rich bonebed of fossil marine vertebrates that lived off the Chilean coast around 8 million years ago.
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Aug 17 2011 - 12:09pm
Scientists at the Smithsonian and partnering organizations have discovered a remarkably primitive eel in a fringing reef off the coast of the Republic of Palau. This fish exhibits many primitive anatomical features unknown in the other 19 families and more than 800 species of living eels, resulting...
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Aug 1 2011 - 11:06am
In 2003, a team of Japanese scientists analyzed the DNA of tapetails and whalefish. The results suggested that these two very different looking fishes were almost identical in one specific gene. But more clues were needed. An international team of marine biologists took a closer look at specimens...
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Mar 12 2013 - 2:40pm
With 1,400 named species of ribbon worms inhabiting every ecosystem on earth, seeking one out should be an easy proposition. But I quickly learned that it can be quite daunting when you’re looking for certain teeny-tiny mud-loving worms. I recently accompanied Dr. Jon Norenburg and postdoctoral...
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Nov 24 2009 - 5:29pm
Researchers in Moorea use a variety of tools to collect organisms. Some are simple, everyday items like buckets and brushes, and some are…a little stranger. Here, two researchers use a “yabbie pump” to slurp up tiny shrimp that live in gobies’ burrows.
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Jun 23 2011 - 11:20am
A time-lapse video shows researchers from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute racing to excavate the fossil of an extinct toothed whale on a beach in Piña, Panama. The fossil is from the Squalodontidae group, commonly known as "shark-...
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Jun 6 2012 - 12:08pm
Students working on a marine genetics project at the Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center in 2011.
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Jun 23 2010 - 11:22am
On April 27, 1986, an estimated 50,000 barrels of medium-weight crude oil drained from a ruptured storage tank at a refinery in Panama, polluting the coast and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Galeta Marine Laboratory, located at the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal. For 15 years...
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Oct 23 2010 - 5:15pm
CREDIT: Chris Kenaley
The Mystery Develops
Flash forward to 1956, when scientists described another new kind of fish. It was named the tapetail because of its long, streamer-like tail. It also had a large upturned mouth.
Unlike the whalefish, the tapetail was found living near the ocean’s...
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Sep 1 2011 - 11:27am
If you want to study invasive species in the ocean, the Panama Canal offers a lot to explore. The ships passing through can inadvertently transport plants, animals, and even parasites from the Atlantic into the Pacific, or the reverse direction. Some species stow away in ballast tanks, others cling...
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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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Jul 14 2011 - 11:11am
Smithsonian zoologists inside the Curasub, a 5-person submersible. They're exploring the biodiversity of the deep reefs off Curaçao in the southern Caribbean. Read more and watch videos about the work in our "Summer in a Sub" blog series.
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Nov 27 2012 - 9:51am
Researchers with the Smithsonian's Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP) collected this sea toad, Chaunax pictus, off the coast of Honduras in 2011. The team is trying to collect sea toads from around the Caribbean to better understand the group's genetic diversity and distribution.
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