Search | New Scientist

Pygmy right whales are the smallest of the baleen whales

World's smallest baleen whale is the last of its kind

15 July 2023

Pygmy right whales are evolutionarily distinct and may be part of a whale family long thought to be extinct

Greg Rouse, Scripps Oceanography The Osedax body is visible inside the root of the tooth on the left and the piece emerging from the lower left is the gelatinous tube of the Osedax worm. The worm can retract inside when disturbed so we can see it properly in the picture.

Zombie worms devour shark teeth that fall to the ocean floor

25 June 2023

Deep-sea Osedax worms, known to consume whale bones and the remains of bony fish, also feed on shark teeth after the predators die

Male harbour seals use complex vocalisations to try to attract females

Male harbour seals may learn vocalisations years before they need them

14 June 2023

Male harbour seals use vocalisations to woo females and they appear to learn these songs years before they need them

Whale shark seen bottom feeding for the first time

1 June 2023

An ecotourism guide in Mexico filmed a whale shark gulping down material from the seabed, a behaviour that has never been observed in this species before

5000 species not known elsewhere live in area set for deep-sea mining

25 May 2023

Thousands more species are probably waiting to be discovered in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a region of the Pacific Ocean where companies are planning to extract valuable metals

Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans and seas. Zooplankton.

Geoengineering the seas could be catastrophic for marine life

19 April 2023

Proposed methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by increasing the alkalinity of seawater using minerals such as basalt could severely affect the availability of nutrients in the deep ocean

Rubbish pulled from the great Pacific garbage patch

Great Pacific Garbage Patch hosts stable community of coastal animals

17 April 2023

Arthropods and molluscs dwelling on plastic and other rubbish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seem to be part of a new type of ecological community inadvertently created by humans

Dusky gregory farmerfish Stegastes nigricans

Algae-farming fish help coral reefs bounce back from bleaching events

19 March 2023

The presence of territorial farmerfish that look after algae gardens seems to help branching corals recover after heat stress has bleached them, but we aren't sure why

Inside Falkor (too), the ship searching for life at hydrothermal vents

1 March 2023

Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) sets sail to uncover unknown vents and lifeforms along the mid-Atlantic ridge

High-tech research ship ready to seek new life at hydrothermal vents

1 March 2023

The Falkor (too), a 100-metre, state-of-the-art research vessel, is scheduled to set sail on 3 March to look for hydrothermal vents and undiscovered organisms, potentially shedding light on how life may have arisen on other planets