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Pirates divide up the riches they plundered. Most pirates abided by their own codes of conduct, and life aboard pirate ships was more democratic than that on naval ships of the time. Watch a slide show about legendary pirates from the Golden Age of Pirates.
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Pyle's "The Sacking of Panama"

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Pirates Ann Bonny and Mary Read shown in men's clothes
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Ann Bonny and Mary Read

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Blackbeard may have been the most notorious pirate of all. Fierce and ferocious-looking, he stood 6’4” tall and had wild eyes and an explosive temper. To add to the effect, he tucked slow-burning cannon fuses under his hat.
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Portrait of Blackbeard

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A juvenile Kemp's ridley sea turtle emerges from the nest
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Kemp's Ridley Hatchling

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A nudibranch showing a closeup of their fleshy, tentacle-like growths, called cerata.
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Aeolid Nudibranch Defense

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Horizontal bands of color represent different species of lichen that have adapted to the conditions at different heights above sea level.
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Lichen Zones

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Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica) is a slow-growing and long-lived seagrass native to the Mediterranean.
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Fish Feeding in Seagrass

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This family tree shows how the ancestors of whales moved gradually from land to sea.
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The Whale Family Tree

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Hundreds to thousands of tiny crustaceans live on each right whale, eating algae that settles on their skin.
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Whale Lice

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Members of the Squamish Nation paddle to a 1997 festival celebrating Native canoe arts.
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Celebrating Traditional Canoes

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Workers prepare to hoist the model of Phoenix, a North Atlantic Right Whale, into position above the exhibit hall floor in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
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Preparing to Hoist the Right Whale Model

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Phoenix rises out of the waters east of Cape Cod, MA, in April 2003.
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Can Right Whales Recover?

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