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Marine Life Series: Dumbo Octopus
Science loves order, breaking down the world into categories, subcategories, levels and classifications. Every element on earth is neatly placed in numerical order from 1 to 113 on the periodic table...
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Marine Life Series: Short-spined Brittle Stars
We’ve discussed sea stars in this series before, but so far I haven’t touched on the group of Asteroids known as brittle stars. They also go by "serpent stars", for reasons which will be made clear...
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Marine Life Series: Bait Balls
Animals have evolved various methods of preventing predators from eating them. A fish that can change the color of its skin to blend in with its surroundings will be less likely to be killed than...
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Marine Life Series: A Worm Named Eunice
Most annelids are small creatures that live under the soil or sea bed. They feed by tunneling through the sediment and ingesting everything they come across, digesting the organic material and passing...
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Marine Life Series: Christmas Tree Worms
Last week we briefly discussed the two types of annelids. Most terrestrial species belong to the group known as Oligochaetes and include the common earthworm. In the marine environment annelids tend to...
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Marine Life Series: Camouflage
Camouflage is a vital adaptation used by many different types of both aquatic and terrestrial animals. Normally we think of an animal blending in with its surroundings to protect itself from predators,...
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Marine Life Series: Flounder’s Twisted Skull
Last week we looked at how several marine animals used camouflage to protect themselves from predators. In that essay I mentioned that a flounder is not flattened top to bottom, as stingrays are, but...
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Marine Life Series: Andre the Harbor Seal
In 1982, as a senior in high school, I had an opportunity to take part in an internship program at a public aquarium in Connecticut. Part of my responsibilities was the daily feeding of the three...
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Marine Life Series: Byssal Threads
The main form of protection for bivalves is the hard pair of shells that envelop and seal closed the soft body inside. But having this defense isn't quite enough to protect them from the many predators...
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Marine Life Series: Raising Seafoals
At any given time I have about ten or fifteen lined seahorses. This species (Hippocampus erectus) is one of the very few coldwater-tolerant varieties in the world. This particular type of seahorse is...
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Marine Life Series: Northern Pufferfish
There are just under two hundred species of animals known as pufferfish. Nearly all are marine and most are found in tropical seas. In New England we have only one species, the Northern Pufferfish...
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Marine Life Series: The Coolest Fish on Earth
If you consider a "profession" to be something one does in exchange for money, then technically I’ve been a professional marine biologist since I was fourteen years old. I’ve never had any other job....
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Marine Life Series: Understanding Krill
The raised stone at the apex of the arch pictured above is the keystone, and in historical architecture is considered so important that it is often decorated with a lion’s head, family seal or other...
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Marine Life Series: Psychedelic Frogfish
It’s always exciting when science discovers a new species of plant or animal sharing our planet. Most of these discoveries tend to come from remote rain forests or the deep ocean. What’s really...
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Marine Life Series: How Tube Feet Work
Sea stars, sea urchins and most other members of the phylum Echinodermata move along the ocean bottom using structures known as tube feet. These tube feet, called ambulacrae in science-speak, are...
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Marine Life Series: The Peacock Flounder
This will be an unusually short entry in this series, but I wanted to introduce you to an absolute master in the art of camouflage. While all species of flatfishes are very good at blending in with...
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Marine Life Series: Sargassum Fish
Out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a roughly million-square-mile area known as the Sargasso Sea. On the surface of this sea is an enormous mat of entangled, floating algae, kept in place by a...
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Marine Life Series: Coral Bleaching
As the term suggests, coral bleaching is the whitening of living coral colonies, a phenomenon associated with anthropogenic changes in the animal’s habitat which lead to the weakening of the colony’s...
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Marine Life Series: Reflex Amputation
Most people are familiar with a lizard’s ability to drop its tail off at will. Also known as autotomy, reflex amputation is an adaptive behavior developed by a wide range of organisms as a means of...
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Marine Life Series, DK GreenRoots: Responsible Shrimp Buying
As a marine educator I’ve become acutely aware of the threat posed by overfishing. In fact, I’m rather distressed about it considering that continuing our current rate of depletion of this resource...
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