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Ocean Portal by The Smithsonian Institution

Census of Marine Life

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ARTICLE Arctic Ocean Diversity The ArcOD project brought together existing information about the diversity of Arctic ecosystems, collected new samples to fill in gaps of knowledge and looked for species and community chan...MORE STORIES


	VIDEO MORE VIDEOS Forces of Change in the Ocean The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth and is essential to all life....
	PHOTO MORE PHOTOS Elephant Seals Tussle for Territory Male northern elephant seals face off on the beach by vocalizing through their e...
	IMAGE GALLERY MORE GALLERIES Census of Marine Life: Wild and Wonderful Creatures The Census of Marine Life - a ten-year effort by scientists from aroun...

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					Red Mid-Water Comb Jelly Apr 18, 2013 - 10:35AMLike this ctenophore (Aulococtena acuminata), many animals that live in the midwater zone are red—making them almost invisible in the dim blue light that filters down from the sea surface. This small comb jelly snares prey with...

Jellyfish, or Siphonophore Colony?

Mar 4, 2013 - 10:11AM

This colony of Rosacea may look like a single jellyfish, but it is...

New Jelly Species: 'Bathykorus bouilloni'

Oct 16, 2012 - 9:53AM

Many expeditions in the Arctic reveal new species, such as this jellyfish...

SPOTLIGHT


The Census of Marine Life During the decade of the Census of Marine Life, more than 6,000 potential new ocean species were discovered by 2,700...

Great White Shark Feb 17 2010 - 6:22pm Sharks are much older than dinosaurs. Their ancestry dates back more than 400 million years, and they are one of evolution’s greatest success stories. These animals are uniquely adapted to their ocean environment with six highly refined senses of smell, hearing, touch, taste, sight, and even...	Amphipod: Salp Invader Sep 7 2012 - 4:35pm Can you spot the amphipod (Phronima atlantica) in the below photo? She's the transparent lobster-looking animal in the middle, surrounded by her own eggs -- inside a sac that once was the "barrel" of a salp. Mothers in the genus Phromina attack the barrel-shaped salps, hollowing out the inside...
Orange Roughy Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am Scientists believe orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) live longer than 150 years! Here, Census of Marine Life researchers used an underwater camera to photograph this group of orange roughy swimming over New Zealand’s Graveyard seamount complex.	A Striped Deep Sea Worm Apr 4 2013 - 12:38pm In Antarctica's Southern Ocean swims a beautiful polychaete (bristly worm) called Tomopteris carpenteri, which is adorned with alternating red and transparent bands. The largest species in its genus, it it found throughout the water column, including the deep sea, where this photo was taken by...
Sea Creatures from the Deep: A Video by National Geographic and the Census of Marine Life Dec 8 2009 - 11:05pm The Census of Marine Life - a ten-year effort by scientists from around the world to answer the age-old question, “What lives in the sea?” It was an international effort to asses the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life in our ocean, and the project offically...	Studying Hydrothermal Vent Life Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am Census researchers manipulate the robotic arm of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Quest to study shrimp and other deep sea life forms. They discovered the creatures at a hydrothermal vent 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) below the surface of the Atlantic.
Red Mid-Water Comb Jelly Apr 18 2013 - 10:35am Like this ctenophore (Aulococtena acuminata), many animals that live in the midwater zone are red—making them almost invisible in the dim blue light that filters down from the sea surface. This small comb jelly snares prey with its two short tentacles.	Marine Zooplankton Aug 28 2012 - 3:33pm Holozooplankton (hereafter called "zooplankton") are small animals that drift in the ocean waves through their entire lives. As such, they are not very easy to count or even identify to species -- but that was the goal of CMarZ. The scientists working on the project aimed to study the species...
Purple Sea Star Aug 29 2012 - 5:30pm This bright purple sea star is a new species found by the Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems, a project of the Census of Marine Life. This particular specimen was seen on the reefs of the French Frigate Shoals during the day, and is about a foot long.	On Biodiversity: Understanding its Meaning and Importance Aug 16 2011 - 1:05pm The ocean is home to a phenomenal diversity of marine organisms. They have evolved to inhabit warm waters near the equator and the icy waters of the Earth’s poles. Marine life takes advantage of the enormous volume the ocean comprises: from diatoms living near the sunny surface, to octopods...
Sea Stars and Urchins off Antarctica Sep 28 2012 - 3:03pm Sea stars (Odontaster validus) and sea urchins (Sterechinus neumayeri) spread over an algae-covered seafloor off the coast of Antarctica.	A Swimming Snail Sep 7 2012 - 4:00pm Sea butterflies (also called pteropods) are sea snails aptly named: they are shelled marine snails, each with a foot like a wing, that swim in the water column like butterflies. This one, Atlanta peronii, is very small: the biggest specimen on record was less than half an inch (11 millimeters) long...
Arctic Sea Cucumber Sep 10 2012 - 10:54am This new species of deep-water sea cucumber (Elpidia belyaevi) was discovered by Census of Marine Life researchers in the frigid waters of the Arctic. Since the 1800s, researchers observed sea cucumbers similar to this one in the Arctic at all depths, from shallow to deep, and assumed they were all...	Forces of Change in the Ocean Oct 5 2010 - 3:58pm The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth and is essential to all life. But forces of change, from overfishing to climate change, are affecting the ocean and humanity's relationship with it. The Census of Marine Life, a decade-long effort to study marine life in greater detail than ever...
Midwater Jellyfish Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am A fringe of short tentacles surrounds the flattened bell of this tiny, transparent jellyfish (Halicreas minimum), which can be found at depths up to 984 feet (300 meters). But it would be hard to spot: the bell grows up to just 4 centimeters (2 inches) across! See more deep ocean diversity and...	Chimaera from the Deep Oct 1 2012 - 8:44am This rarely-seen smalleyed rabbitfish (Hydrolagus affinis), belonging to the order of Chimaera, was caught during a research trip to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 2004 sponsored by the Census of Marine Life. In Greek mythology, chimeras were beasts that were part lion, part snake and part goat,...