Today's Catch
Oct 26, 2012
Credit:
What do you get when you mix together a hurricane, the remnants of a wintry midwestern storm, and cold Arctic air? The " Frankenstorm ," which is what the US National Weather Service renamed Hurricane Sandy as it approached the US east coast during the week before Halloween in 2012. The combination of strange weather conditions may result in a powerful storm not unlike a nor'easter, with powerful...Read more
Oct 26, 2012
Credit:Encyclopedia of Life
Simon Coppard, a post-doctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and an Encyclopedia of Life Rubenstein Fellow specializing in echinoids often uncovers new species during his research. In 2006, he and a fellow scientist discovered and described Coelopleurus exquisitus , a previously unknown sea urchin species from New Caledonia in the South Pacific.Read more
Oct 25, 2012
Credit:Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
The Island Leaf-Toed Gecko ( Phyllodactylus insularis ) is one of several species of geckos that live in the mangroves of the Caribbean’s Mangal Cay. More about mangroves can be found in our Mangroves featured story.Read more
Oct 24, 2012
Credit:Dr. David Maitland, Nikon Small World
Coral sand is aptly named: it's sand made up of tiny bits of coral and other ocean animals such as foraminifera , molluscs, and crustaceans. This picture -- at 100x magnification -- took 18th place in Nikon's 2012 Small World contest , which celebrates scientific photos taken under the microscope. It was taken by Dr. David Maitland , a zoologist and photographer from Feltwell, United Kingdom...Read more
Oct 23, 2012
Credit:Amanda Feuerstein
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. Nancy Knowlton chronicled both the coral's bleaching and its recovery on the Ocean Portal blog.Read more
Oct 22, 2012
Credit:Steve Turek
A diet of algae and seagrasses gives this turtle ( Chelonia mydas ) greenish colored fat—and its name. Weighing as much as 500 pounds, the threatened green sea turtle lives its life at sea, with only females coming to shore to lay eggs. See a slideshow with more pictures of beautiful but threatened animals .Read more
Oct 19, 2012
Credit:Devin Harvey/Marine Photobank
Red coral necklaces fill a store display window. The United States annually imports around one million live coral animals from tropical reefs for use in aquariums, and is the largest documented consumer of precious red coral, commonly used in jewelry, according to a 2008 SeaWeb report ( PDF ). Harvesting coral to produce jewelry like this threatens all coral reefs , including deep-sea corals .Read more
Oct 18, 2012
Credit:Yeang H. Ch’ng/Nature’s Best Photography
“A four-foot-long barracuda is visible flashing past me, with the sky and the lights of my boat seen above.” -- Nature's Best photographer, Yeang H. Ch’ng. See more beautiful ocean photos in our slideshow of winners from the 2010 Nature's Best Ocean Views photo contest.Read more
Oct 17, 2012
Credit:Linda Snook/NOAA/CBNMS
The Pacific hagfish ( Eptatretus stoutii ), a fish that looks similar to an eel, has no jaw and is totally blind. They find food, often dead fish, through a specialized sense of smell and, because they can absorb nutrients through their skin, can eat by just burrowing into a dead carcass. However, they also eat live prey. Learn more about their habitat, ecology, and slime-producing habits !Read more
Oct 16, 2012
Credit:K. Raskoff, Monterey Peninsula College, Hidden Ocean 2005, NOAA
Many expeditions in the Arctic reveal new species, such as this jellyfi sh Bathykorus bouilloni , which, strangely, has only four tentacles! Dr. Kevin Raskoff from California State University, Monterey Bay first captured one in the deep Arctic in 2002 and thought it was rare. But when he returned in 2005 with NOAA and the Census of Marine Life , he and his crew found themselves in a swarm of the...Read more
