About five million years ago, the North American Pacific Northwest was teeming with some pretty big fish that would have made the continent’s biggest salmon runs look small. An eight to 10-feet-long prehistoric salmon species called Oncorhynchus rastrosus stalked the seas and streams of the Miocene. It weighed upwards of…
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Why some clownfish are growing up too quickly
This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. For clownfish, life begins with an adventure. In 2003’s Finding Nemo, young Nemo takes a dizzying journey from coral reef to captivity and back again. In real life, it’s…
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Sea the beauty of the world’s oceans with these 12 award-worthy photos
The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, but humans have only visited and mapped 5 percent of them. They remain one of the greatest, deepest mysteries close to home. With the help of scientists and photographers, however, we’re uncovering more wildlife and more about the flows…
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Get ready for the robotic fish revolution
This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. Human technology has long drawn inspiration from the natural world: The first airplanes were modeled after birds. The designer of Velcro was inspired by the irksome burrs he…
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Meet the new king of the ‘living fossils’
If you take a look at a horseshoe crab, you are essentially peering back in time millions of years. Animals like horseshoe crabs, coelacanths, and the duck-billed platypus are what Charles Darwin called “living fossils” since alive specimens show very few physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record…
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This nuclear byproduct is fueling debate over Fukushima’s seafood
On October 5, operators of Japan’s derelict Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant resumed pumping out wastewater held in the facility for the past 12 years. Over the following two-and-a-half weeks, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) plans to release around 7,800 tons of treated water into the Pacific Ocean. This is…
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These 24-eyed jellyfish learn from their mistakes
Jellyfish are an undeniable evolutionary success story, surviving at least 500 million years in Earth’s oceans. They are even poised to handle climate change very well in some areas of the world, all without a centralized brain like most animals. Despite this lack of a central brain, trained Caribbean box…
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World’s oldest living aquarium fish could be 100 years young
The world’s oldest living aquarium fish is actually even older than scientists initially believed. According to an analysis by the California Academy of Sciences, the Steinhart Aquarium’s beloved Australian lungfish named Methuselah is estimated to be about 92 years old, with a high-estimate of over 100. Meet Methuselah Native only…
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