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On coral reefs fish are important links in the food chain that sustains higher-order predators (including humans) and keeps everything in balance.

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Black Axil Chromis on a Coral Reef

September 2017

Red Pigfish and Blue Mao-Mao school at the edge of a cavern in New Zealand's Poor Knights Islands. Read photographer Brian Skerry's story behind this photo.

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Protected Pigfish and Mao-Mao School

February 2018

Corolla moves through the water by flapping a wing plate nearly twice the size of its gelatinous shell, giving it the nickname “sea butterfly”.

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Sea Butterfly

March 2016

A Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), a species with a normal range in the North Atlantic, interacting with the native Brandt’s cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) sighted on the Farallon Islands, located off the coast of San Francisco, California in t

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Northern Gannet in the Pacific

November 2015

Illustrations of radiolarians from Ernst Haeckel.

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Radiolarians

June 2015

Field experiments conducted by the Zostera Experimental Network (ZEN) explored seagrass biodiversity.

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ZEN Research

January 2016

This young Gonatus squid is still translucent, making it tricky for predators to spot it.

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Deep Sea Squid

March 2016

Karen Romano Young's 18th #AntarcticLog

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AntarcticLog 18

February 2018

Scientists use satellite images of the ocean to estimate chlorophyll concentrations in the water. You can see the yellow swirls of phytoplankton concentrated at the sea surface in this image.

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Satellite Image of Chlorophyll Concentration

July 2017

An underwater blizzard of oil, marine microbes, "sea snot", and algae.

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A Dirty Blizzard In the Gulf of Mexico

January 2015

This 1936 blue whale specimen from the Gulf of Alaska (above: preserved in alcohol, below: CT scan) is part of a rare Smithsonian collection of whale fetuses that were collected in association with commercial whaling operations in the early to mid-20th cen

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Blue Whale Specimen

March 2015

Fish cage with mussel lines suspended around the parameter.

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IMTA System

September 2015