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An X-ray image of grooved razorfish, Centriscus scutatus. Razorfish are encased in thin, transparent bony plates attached to their spines, which you can see in the X-ray.

Munch, munch. The queen parrotfish (Scarus vetula) scrapes algae from Caribbean coral reefs with its parrot-like beak. While feeding, hard stone and coral inevitably get mixed into its lunch, which in turn gets ground up by the fish and deposited back into the ecosystem as sand! This fish is an adult male. But when young, parrotfish have the ability to change sex, depending on the population’s needs.

It’s confirmed: both Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice—around 350 billion tons each year—and, as a result, sea level has risen 11.1 millimeters worldwide since 1992. This photo shows a summertime channel created by the flow of melted ice, which ultimately carries the water away from the glacier to the sea.

This guineafowl moray (Gymnothorax meleagris) is one of about 200 species of moray eels found in tropical and subtropical coral reefs. Moray eels are a type of bony fish. Many species, like this one with a brown body and white spots similar to a guineafowl, are named after their distinct appearances.

A male great hammerhead shark swims in the Bahamas at sunset in this image captured by National Geographic photojournalist Brian Skerry.

For nearly 30 years, Skerry has been swimming with and photographing sharks, including great whites, tigers, bulls, blacktips, and great hammerheads all over the world. In his first blog post for the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, "Swimming with Sharks," Skerry reflects on these exhilarating experiences.

The spotfin lionfish (Pterois antennata), with venomous spines extended, is native to Indo-Pacific reefs, but has invaded reefs in Florida, the Caribbean and is moving up the Atlantic coast. It probably escaped from an aquarium. Lionfish are aggressive predators and threaten local species. It is also referred to as a turkeyfish because depending on how you view the lionfish it can look like the plumage of a turkey.

This lanternfish (Diaphus sp.), found in the Red Sea, has light-producing photophores along its ventral surface (belly), and a nasal light organ that acts like a headlight. Hear scientists tell stories about encountering bioluminescent marine animals in the deep sea.

For the last 150 years, paleontologists have debated the origins of the great white shark. Many believe that they descended from the 50-foot megalodon, also known as the megatooth shark (Carcharocles megalodon), which is often imagined to be a vastly inflated great white. But after the discovery of a new fossil species, announced in November 2012, the consensus seems to be shifting.

The feathery strands at the back of this nudibranch’s (Chromodoris willani) body are no mere adornment: they’re its gills!

Ultraviolet light illuminates the growth rings in a cross-section of a 44-year-old deep-sea coral (Primnoa resedaeformis) collected off the coast of Newfoundland at about 1,300 feet (400 meters).

Like other cephalopods, the common cuttlefish (Sepia officials) is no dummy. But while octopuses are quick to learn manual tasks like opening jars, cuttlefish have a different skillset: the social.

This ctenophore (a stingless jellyfish-like animal) is native to the east coast of North and South America. In 1982, it was discovered in the Black Sea, where it was transported by ballast water. It subsequently spread to the Caspian Sea. In both places it multiplied and formed immense populations. The sea walnuts contributed to the collapse of local fisheries because they feed on zooplankton that the commercial fish also consume.