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Known as “viperfish”, these cryptic fish use their giant teeth to prey on other fish and can grow to be 2 feet long (24 inches).

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Midnight Hunter

March 2016

Illustration of copepods from Ernst Haeckel.

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Copepods

June 2015

Plastic does not biodegrade; it photodegrades, which means that sunlight breaks it down into smaller and smaller pieces. These bits of plastic and plankton were collected during a 3:00 am manta net tow, and are just a sample of the plankton-like plastic pi

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Plastic Bits from the Gyre

July 2015

Drifters, Dye, and Drones: How can you follow 3.19 million barrels of spilled oil? Researchers with GoMRI's CARTHE project have set out drifters—big and small—that relay their GPS locations every five minutes. These data can help scientists understand

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Drifters, Dye, and Drones

February 2015

Dispersant in the Deep: Dispersants, soap-like chemicals that cause oil to mix with water more easily, have been used with success to remove oil after a spill on the ocean's surface. But Deepwater Horizon wasn't a surface spill; instead, oil spewed into th

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Oil Spewing From Macondo Well

January 2015

A Tiny Fish Tells A Big Story: Some fish only spend a part of the year in the Gulf of Mexico, but some, like the Gulf killifish, live there year-round. In addition, these estuary fish are small and abundant, making them an excellent study species for scien

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Killifish in the Gulf of Mexico

January 2015

Starfish—marine invertebrates of the phylum Echinodermata—are famous for their ability to shed limbs as a means of defense and then regenerate the sacrificed part.

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Haeckel Starfish

June 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

Citizen Science Tracks Oil’s Path: When oil spills into seawater, it's hard to know where ocean currents will carry it. To map Gulf currents and improve predictions, scientists with GoMRI's GISR project are dropping biodegradable yellow driftcards throug

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Citizen Science With a Drift Card

January 2015

A puffin sits on a rock next to a puffin decoy.

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Puffin and Decoy

January 2018