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The First Filter Feeder

Today, filter feeders like clams, sponges, krill, baleen whales, fishes, and many...

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Spin Hagfish Slime into Silk

Believe it or not, this unraveling thread is from hagfish slime. Hagfish are...

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Fireworm Bristles

No, this isn't a bundle of paintbrushes: you're looking at a fireworm...

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Sparkling Sponge Spicules

These sparkling sponge spicules are microscopic needle-like structures that many...

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Common Tern Silhouette, Nickerson Beach, Long Island, New York, USA

“A tern colony resides here for the better part of the summer, raising their...

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Red Crab Migration, Christmas Island, Indian Ocean

“The largest land migration of any animal on Earth, as many as 120 million crabs...

Article

Flippers or Feet? An Extinct Mammal May Have Been Replaced By Today's Sea Cows

In the seagrass beds and kelp forests of the Oligocene-Miocene transition, nearly...

Personal Perspectives

4,000 Years of Marine History through the Eyes of a Seabird

Most people have never heard of the Hawaiian petrel, an endangered, crow-sized...

Personal Perspectives

Smithsonian Scientists Describe a 'New' Fossil Whale

Monodontids, the group of whales that includes the belugas and narwhals swimming...

When Did Today’s Whales Get So Big?

More recently than you might think, say scientists who scoured the fossil...

Personal Perspectives

Expedition to Excavate a Fossil Whale

My graduate student Jorge and I are departing today for Panama, to excavate a...