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The Ocean is important to all life, including yours. Join us.

Welcome to the Ocean Portal – a unique, interactive online experience that inspires awareness, understanding, and stewardship of the world’s Ocean, developed by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and more than 20 collaborating organizations.

You are among the first wave of visitors to the Portal, an experience which we hope will empower you to shape and share your personal Ocean experiences, knowledge, and perspectives.

The input you provide through feedback modules and comment boxes will help us to shape future Ocean Portal content and functionality. Like the Ocean, which is made of millions of marine species, your comments, questions, and clicks will help to bring the Portal closer to the vastness and variety of the Ocean itself.

Collaborator Contributions

Photograph of a green sea slug, with white polka-dot-like markings and white-edged ruffly structures along the length of its back.

Lettuce Sea Slug

The lettuce sea slug (Elysia crispata) has enlarged fleshy appendages that are folded over one another, with colors ranging from blue to green, with purple and red lining. The green coloring is what gives this mollusk it's common name, resembling a head of leafy green lettuce. The sea slug eats green algae, but not all of the algae they eat is digested. Some of the green algae gets shuttled off to make a home in those fleshy appendages (called parapodia).

West Indian Manatee

West Indian Manatee Portrait

West Indian Manatees, Trichechus manatus, are found in warm, shallow coastal ecosystems along the southeastern North America and northeastern South America. They graze plants in mangrove ecosystems and seagrass beds, occasionally eating small fish or invertebrates.

X-ray Image of a Monterey Skate

X-Ray Image of a Monterey Skate

An X-ray image of a Monterey skate (Raja montereyensis) reveals a spine that extends like a tail out from the pelvic fin. The skeletons of skates, rays, chimaeras, and sharks are made of cartilage, rather than bone. Scientists in the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History use X-ray images, like the one shown, to study the complex bone structure and diversity of fish without having to dissect or damage the specimen.

The long barbel on the chin of this dragonfish has a glowing tip that may attract prey.

Scaly Dragonfish

The long barbel on the chin of this dragonfish (Stomias boa) has a glowing tip that may attract prey. With its large mouth and sharp, curved teeth, the fish makes quick work of any prey that venture too close. Scaly dragonfish live at depths of 200-1,500 meters (656-4,921 feet) and grow up to 32 centimeters (12.6 inches) long.

A beautiful bromeliad blooms among the mud and roots of a mangrove swamp.

Dancing Bulb

This beautiful bromeliad, also called an air plant because it gets its nutrients and water from the air, is a flowering plant in the pineapple family. All of them are epiphytes, meaning they get their support from and grow on other plants. Many are found in mangrove forests, such as this one making house on a mangrove root. It's not known whether they provide any benefit to the trees, but when the bromeliads lose their leaves and petals, they fall into the water and provide nutrients to the underwater ecosystem.

The currents of the North Pacific gyre collect trash—mostly bits of microscopic plastic—into what are known as "garbage patches."

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The “garbage patches,” as referred to in the media, are areas of marine debris concentration in the North Pacific Ocean, circulated by the North Pacific gyre. The gyre spreads across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the western US, and north-south from California to Hawaii. Its total size isn't well defined because there are numerous factors that affect the location, size, and strength currents throughout the year, including seasonality and El Nino/La Nina.

Venomous Box Jelly from South Carolina

Venomous Box Jelly from South Carolina

This venomous box jelly (Chiropsalmus quadrumanus) was collected off the coast of South Carolina. The specimen now resides in the Smithsonian’s marine collection. It's venomous sting can be lethal, especially to small children. 

Color illustration of an ancient bivalve.

Elevator Rudists

These "elevator" rudists, an ancient bivalve, used one long heavy valve to anchor themselves in the sediment. They used their tentacles (shown here in pink) to filter food from the sea water. Discover more about the ancient ocean at our feature Ocean Over Time.

<p>The central dark area of this foram (<em>Globigerinoides ruber</em>) is the shell surrounded by spines. The tiny yellow dots are symbiotic algae, which live in the protoplasm of the host organism.</p>

A Colorful Foram: Globigerinoides ruber

This foraminifer was collected as it floated about 3 meters below the surface off the coast of Puerto Rico. The central dark area is the shell surrounded by spines. The tiny yellow dots are symbiotic algae, which live in the protoplasm of the host organism. When the foraminifer dies, the spines fall off and only the shell is preserved in the fossil record. Shell building animals like forams will be affected by ocean acidification and warming sea temperatures. 

A purple hard coral releases bundles of pink eggs glued together with sperm.

Coral Spawning

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 that are often glued into bundles (one bundle per polyp) that float towards the surface.