Ocean Blog
Excavating a "toothed" baleen whale from Vancouver IslandPublished by: Nicholas D. Pyenson - May 7, 2012The whales that we see in today's world can broadly be split into two groups: those with teeth (odontocetes), and those that have baleen (mysticetes) instead of teeth. These two groups share a common ancestor in the Eocene, which had teeth (They looked a lot like the ancient whale skeletons in the Sant Ocean Hall). |
 Nick Pyenson, the Smithsonian's curator of fossil marine mammals, points to the skull and skeleton of a 23-25 million year old fossil "toothed" mysticete whale.
NDP and J. A. Goldbogen/SI
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Reef Sharks Repelled by PeoplePublished by: Hannah Waters - Apr 27, 2012Reef sharks rarely get any love. These sharks, comprising several species, loiter around coral reefs, snacking on small fish, squids and crustaceans. And while their size is nothing to smirk at -- 5-10 feet is pretty impressive in my book! |
 Large numbers of grey reef sharks were observed at Jarvis Island, an uninhabited Pacific island, during the 2010 Pacific RAMP expedition of the NOAA Ship Hi'ialakai.
NOAA
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The Oil Spill, Two Years LaterPublished by: Hannah Waters - Apr 20, 2012Two years ago last week, on April 20, 2010, an explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused the largest marine oil spill in history, gushing nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of three months. |
 Mark Dodd, a wildlife biologist from Georgia's Department of Natural Resources, surveying oiled sargassum seaweed in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
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Celebrate Earth Day by Thinking of the OceanPublished by: Emily Frost - Apr 20, 2012The surface of the Earth is 71% water, so we should celebrate the ocean this Earth Day. This Earth Day on Sunday, April 22nd, think of what you can do on an everyday basis to help our Planet Ocean. The ocean provides us with so much - from beach weekends with family and friends to the regulation of our climate. |
 NOAA Corps Captain John Adler shows a budding ocean scientist how to deploy his school's adopted drifter.
NOAA
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Amazing Ocean: Explore from Your Mobile DevicePublished by: Maggy Hunter Benson - Apr 13, 2012Amazing Ocean is a brand new, free mobile app developed by the U.S. Department of State that features Smithsonian Ocean Portal and Sant Ocean Hall content. The app allows users to explore photos, videos, and rich ocean-themed content on their mobile devices. |
 Amazing Ocean is a new mobile application that allows you to surf ocean photos, pictures, videos and more from your mobile device.
Smithsonian Institution
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Smithsonian Scientists Describe a 'New' Fossil WhalePublished by: Jorge Velez-Juarbe - Mar 8, 2012Monodontids, the group of whales that includes the belugas and narwhals swimming our ocean today, are emblematic symbols of the Arctic. However, their fossil record, although scarce, suggests that these animals' ranges could have been much broader. Fossil monodontids have been previously found in late Miocene deposits in Baja California, Mexico, the early Pliocene of Belgium and the eastern coast of North America. |
 A reconstruction of a new fossil beluga relative, Bohaskaia monodontoides, described by Smithsonian scientists, is pictured in the foreground. Its living relatives, the beluga and narwhal, are illustrated left to right in the background. Coloration of the extinct whale is speculative.
Carl Buell, http://carlbuell.com/
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The Discovery of Multispecies Communities of SeacowsPublished by: Jorge Velez-Juarbe - Jan 26, 2012Sirenians, or seacows, are a group of marine mammals that include manatees and dugongs. In the modern ocean, only one species of seacow is found in each world region, however, the fossil record tells a different story. According to the fossil record of these marine mammals, which dates back 50 million years ago, it was more common to find three, maybe more, different species living together at one time. This oddity hinted that seacows’ environment and food sources were different than what we see today. |
 This reconstruction illustrates multispecies communities of seacows from three different time periods and ocean basins. Each seacow represents a different extinct species of dugong.
Carl Buell/http://carlbuell.com/
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The Perfect Underwater PhotoPublished by: Brian Skerry - Dec 19, 2011There is of course, no such thing as the perfect photograph, as there is no perfect song, movie, or painting. Photography by its very nature is subjective and what appeals to one viewer may not interest another. There are photographic elements however, that have been proven to make images better, especially things like exposure and composition. |
 A coral hermit crab, Paguritta harmsi, about the size of two grains of rice, living in coral in the waters of Japan's Ogasawara Islands.
© Brian Skerry, www.brianskerry.com
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Using Light Painting to Teach BioluminescencePublished by: Catherine - Nov 21, 2011What does a bioluminescent creature that lives more than two miles below the surface of the ocean and a glow stick have in common? More than you think. In a unique spin on an art technique called "light painting," you can create your own bioluminescent organisms with glow sticks in your classroom or home. |
 Using a photographic technique called light painting, this image captures light emitted from a ceramic fish's mouth.
Flickr User nickel.media
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Surveying Life On Sea TurtlesPublished by: John Barrat - Nov 8, 2011“It is strange to think of a sea turtle as an ecosystem,” says Amanda Feuerstein, program coordinator and research assistant at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, “but they are…they have all of these other animals living on their skin and shells.” |
 These baby olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea) will eventually provide a home to crustaceans, mollusks, and other epibionts. That's according to a survey of epibionts living on mature, nesting olive ridleys and green sea turtles in Jalisco, Mexico.
Alejandro Peña de Niz
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