Hannah Waters

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Hannah Waters with the eyeball of a giant squid

Hannah Waters is a web produce, editor and writer for the Ocean Portal at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She received Biology and Latin degrees from Minnesota’s Carleton College, sneaking off to the coasts in the summertime to study seabird colonies, conserve endangered piping plovers, and help lobstermen with their traps.

Before coming to the Smithsonian, Hannah wrote about biology and medicine for science magazines following a stint in a molecular biology lab researching the epigenetics of aging. She continues to write a science blog for Scientific American..

Collaborator Contributions

Invasive brittlestars scattered on coral in Brazil.

An Invasive Brittlestar

These brittlestars (Ophiothela mirabilis) are not where they belong. These animals, usually found in the Pacific Ocean, were first spotted in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil in 2000. And since then, they've been seen crawling up and down the eastern coast of South America, all the way north to the Caribbean. O. mirabilis has been observed in ports up and down the coast, suggesting that it was brought to the Atlantic from the Pacific by ships.

Kelps are large, brown algae that grow along coasts around the world, especially in cooler regions.

Kelp off the California Coast

Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) is large, brown algae that grows in dense forests along coasts around the world. Their long stalks anchor each plant to the seafloor, and they grow meters high like giant trees towards the surface. Kelp forest ecosystems are home to a variety of animals, including seals, sea lions, whales, sea otters, gulls, terns, snowy egrets, great blue herons, cormorants, and shore birds.

Elephant seals' eyes are specialized to dim light and, in particular, to light at the wavelength of 485 nm -- which is the same wavelength given off by the bioluminescent lanternfish that are the seals' main prey.

Elephant Seals Laze on the Beach

These southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) may look like beach bums, but when they are in the water hunting, they are anything but. Satellite tracking by tagging the animals has found that, during the 10 months they spend at sea, elephant seals spend most of their time underwater, hunting fish and squid at depths of 1,300 to 3,300 feet (400 to 1,000 meters).

The comb jelly (ctenophore) Thalassocalyce inconstans was photographed in the Sargasso Sea by Census of Marine Zooplankton researchers.

A Ctenophore Feeds

The comb jelly (ctenophore) Thalassocalyce inconstans is found in shallow to deep water in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and sometimes in warmer Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of California -- although this one was photographed in the Sargasso Sea by Census of Marine Zooplankton researchers.

<p>This copepod (<strong><a href="http://eol.org/pages/340029/overview">Gaussia princeps</a></strong>) was collected deeper than 1000 meters in the Sargasso Sea by Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ) researchers in April 2006.</p>

Deep Sea Copepod

This copepod (Gaussia princeps) was collected deeper than 1000 meters in the Sargasso Sea by Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ) researchers in April 2006, as part of the 10-year Census of Marine Life. However, specimens of this species have been collected in all the world's oceans at many depths: in the Caribbean, it has been found at depths as shallow as 25-50 meters!

The squidworm has 10 tentacle-like appendages on its head.

The Squidworm - A New Species

In the Coral Triangle, a biodiverse area between Indonesia and the Philippines, scientists discovered this swimming polychaete (bristly worm), which they have dubbed the "squidworm." Using a remotely operated vehicle, the researchers with the Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ), a project of the Census of Marine Life, dove 1.8 miles (2,800 meters) to first discover Teuthidodrilus samae in 2007.

A Baby Moray Eel, or a Really Small Adult?

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.

<p>Submarine pilot Bruce Brandt secures <a href="/ocean-photos/reef-monitoring-structure">ARMS</a> to the outside of the submersible <em>Curasub</em> so it can deploy ARMS on the seafloor.</p>

ARMS Deployment from a Submarine

Submarine pilot Bruce Brandt secures ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) to the submersible Curasub off the coast of Curacao. In shallow water, SCUBA divers can place these biodiversity-measuring structures on the seafloor by hand -- but in the deep, DROP (Deep Reef Observation Project) researchers had to devise new ways to deploy ARMS using creativity and adaptations to the tools of the submersible.

<p><a href="/ocean-news/deep-reef-observation-project-drop">DROP</a> researchers successfully deploy a deep-sea <a href="/ocean-photos/reef-monitoring-structure">ARMS</a> at 396 feet using their submersible.</p>

Deploying ARMS in the Deep Reef

Deploying ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) is tricky in the deep sea, where SCUBA divers can't place and secure them to the floor with their hands and a hammer. Researchers with DROP (Deep Reef Observation Project) had to redesign the methods for deploying and retreiving ARMS, using just the robotic arm and tools on their submersible. Here, the team successfully deployed a deep-sea ARMS at 396 feet.

This small sea star, little more than an inch across, is orange on top and whitish underneath.

Little Sea Star

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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