All the news on the Earth's largest environment.

A comment on Reddit reminded me of a question that I have received many times. The question is always a good one because it stems from knowledge and deductive reasoning. The said question requires one ...

Readers of DSN may think they know my favorite organism. Did you guess the giant isopod or did you guess the giant squid? Those beasties are truly fantastic. Large and dwelling in the deep oceans, ...

This is the second of a two-part post. In the first installment, Kim presented alternatives to this project. This installment is a collaboration between Kim and Miriam. Dr. Kim Martini is a physical ...

Ocean Sunfish, also known as Mola Mola, look like a pancake and are just the weirdest fish. I was ambivalent about these creatures until reading this absolutely EPIC Facebook rant about their sheer ...

A new species of deep-sea cucumber has over 100 feet in alternating two or three rows. This means of course that when it plays the This Little Piggy nursery rhyme it needs to repeat it 25 times. The ...

Biologists have a habit of naming things after cool animals. Cars named after comb jellies, internet passwords after giant squid. Most of these names I recognized, but then I saw my friend’s wifi ...

I have only seen a hydrothermal vent once, during Dive 73 aboard the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s Doc Ricketts. Unlike many deep-sea biologists, I have always been more interested in ...

Magnapinna squids are one of the deep-sea more ethereal creatures. Little is known of these squid as very few have ever been captured, although over the last decade with the increased usage of ...

“Tomopterids are pelagic polycheate (segmented worm) with paddle-like parapodia that propel them through the water column. They are relatively common in the deep mesopelagic, or twighlight zone, and ...

Like most deep-sea biologists, I have a large collection of decorated Styrofoam cups. A couple dozen line the bookshelf of my office, each displaying a rainbow of Sharpie colors. Each cup is ...

From the study, “The majority of the DDT+ compounds (87%, n = 13) detected in the sediment and biota were previously detected in [local] birds and marine mammals. This discovery is critical and ...