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Dec 17 2009 - 7:00pm
Scientists in the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History use X-ray imaging to study the complex bone structure and diversity of fish. This image gallery showcases X-ray images of sharks and their relatives and bony fish; revealing how...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Dr. Nancy Knowlton holds the Sant Chair in Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:44am
Dr. Carole Baldwin is Curator of Fishes at the National Museum of Natural History. Read an interview with her about how she used DNA analysis and other tools to discover seven new species of fish in the museum's collections.
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Sep 30 2011 - 6:38am
Smithsonian curator of fossil marine mammals Nick Pyenson and a team of collaborators are heading into Chile's Atacama Desert, shown here. They'll study a rich bonebed of fossil marine vertebrates that lived off the Chilean coast around 8 million years ago.
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Sep 1 2011 - 11:27am
If you want to study invasive species in the ocean, the Panama Canal offers a lot to explore. The ships passing through can inadvertently transport plants, animals, and even parasites from the Atlantic into the Pacific, or the reverse direction. Some species stow away in ballast tanks, others cling...
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Jun 22 2011 - 5:47pm
On a beach in Piña, Panama the tide is rolling out. Faint outlines of skeletal remains rise above the sand. Smithsonian scientists Nicholas Pyenson and Aaron O'Dea along with a team of students descend upon the beach. Their mission: to excavate the remains of a whale from the extinct group...
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Aug 10 2012 - 3:27pm
This purple urchin Paleopneustes cristatus is seldom seen by itself, and can be found in groups of hundreds. Dr. Dave Pawson, a senior scientist at NMNH who studies deep-sea echinoderms, is testing if the fertilized eggs of this urchin sink or are buoyant, an important question in...
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Jul 31 2012 - 5:53pm
The acidic waters from CO2 seeps can dissolve shells and also make it harder for shells to grow in the first place.
Read more about how reef scientist Laetitia Plaisance uses carbon dioxide seeps to study ocean acidification and how it will affect biodiversity on coral reefs in the...
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Jul 13 2012 - 1:01pm
Imagine: You’re in a small submersible, and you gently settle on the soft muddy bottom at a depth of 12,000 feet. It’s absolutely dark. What will you see when the exterior lights are turned on? Will you discover underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents, as some astonished geologists did back in...
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May 11 2012 - 11:46am
Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, holds an arm bone from a "toothed" mysticete from Vancouver Island. This is the second specimen found at this locality on the remote western side of Vancouver Island. Nick used a rock saw to...
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Jun 4 2012 - 1:44pm
It’s not everyday that I get to collect and gather data right alongside our Museum’s researchers. So, imagine my recent delight when the opportunity was presented to me to travel half way around the world to Bali, Indonesia to participate in a research and education field project.
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Jun 23 2011 - 11:20am
A time-lapse video shows researchers from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute racing to excavate the fossil of an extinct toothed whale on a beach in Piña, Panama. The fossil is from the Squalodontidae group, commonly known as "shark-...
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Oct 15 2012 - 1:44pm
Welcome to Moorea, a tiny, isolated island in the middle of the vast Pacific. Moorea is 132 square kilometers (51 square miles) of tropical ecosystems – from jungle and wetlands to beaches and coral reefs – with no major landmasses for thousands of miles. While it may look like the perfect vacation...
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Aug 16 2012 - 2:21pm
Submarine pilot Bruce Brandt secures ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) to the submersible Curasub off the coast of Curacao. In shallow water, SCUBA divers can place these biodiversity-measuring structures on the seafloor by hand -- but in the deep, DROP (Deep Reef Observation...
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May 7 2012 - 3:34pm
The 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...
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Aug 16 2012 - 12:21pm
If there had been room to stand up, there would have been a standing ovation. As it was, the five of us on the submersible Curasub clapped and cheered when the first three deep-reef ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) were successfully deployed at approximately 396 feet (120 meters).
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Aug 16 2011 - 2:31pm
A video of the Palauan primitive cave eel (Protanguilla palau) swimming in the Pacific off the Republic of Palau. Jiro Sakaue, a Japanese research diver, first discovered the new genus and species in a Palauan reef cave in 2009.
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Oct 23 2010 - 5:13pm
These three fish—a whalefish, bignose, and tapetail (l to r)—became the prime suspects in an international scientific mystery. Each species seemed to be missing either a member of the opposite sex or a stage of development. Find out how museum collections helped solve this mystery.
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Nov 18 2010 - 4:49pm
Sunday, November 21 marks World Fisheries Day, an annual occasion observed in many fishing communities around the world. It’s a great opportunity—even for those of us who do not fish for a living—to pause and reflect on the importance of maintaining healthy fisheries.
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Sep 12 2011 - 12:32pm
For over a decade, Smithsonian Arctic Archaeologist, William Fitzhugh, has been investigating an early European whaling site at Hare Harbor in Québec, Canada. The site and the artifacts recovered here have revealed information about the contact and trading relationships between Inuit peoples of...
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Aug 17 2011 - 12:09pm
Scientists at the Smithsonian and partnering organizations have discovered a remarkably primitive eel in a fringing reef off the coast of the Republic of Palau. This fish exhibits many primitive anatomical features unknown in the other 19 families and more than 800 species of living eels, resulting...
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Dr. Clyde Roper prepares to dive thousands of feet to a giant squid habitat off the coast of New Zealand in a one-person submersible.
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Mar 29 2011 - 4:11pm
Dennis Whigham, Senior Botanist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
These Smithsonian field stations enable scientists worldwide to conduct long-term studies on mangrove ecosystems from a range of latitudes. More about mangroves can be found in our Mangroves featured story.
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