loreface:

ceasepool:

underthevastblueseas:

Sarcastic Fringehead 

[video source]

SPOOKY

HOW IS THIS THING REAL AUGH

Yay, sarcastic fringeheads! They are gigantic bluffers. It’s the males that have the huge brightly colored maxillae, and they love to threaten everything in sight, especially other males.   They’re only 3-9 inches long, and quite often choose litter, like bottles and cans, to live in. 

The Aquarium of the Pacific has a few of these guys and says:

It is unlikely that anyone intentionally fishes for this tiny, pugnacious fish. Sometimes accidentally caught, sport and commercial fishers are usually not comfortable handling the fish because there is a good chance of being bitten by the needle-sharp teeth of an angry fringehead unwilling to let go. Divers have reported damage to their wet suits by these grumpy little fish.

One of our project computers (back when we still named them) was named Fringehead.

(via ruminia)

thalass0philia:

sh4rkies:

wonderiferous:

curiosityoftheocean:

Took my breath away.
Photo by Judi Wellden

who tagged this as dolphins?

Orcas are actually more closely related to dolphins than whales. Not many know it, but it’s true :)

It was actually me that tagged it as dolphins, awks.

Orcas are dolphins.  Just very large ones.

(via peace-love-whales)

(via From the gaping jaws of a giant shark to the intricate dance of mating seahorses - the Best Underwater Photographer of the Year Competition reveals its winner | Mail Online)

Lots of really gorgeous underwater photography.  I just wish they could have fact checked the names of some the animals. And what the…Wonder Woman?  I guess there was a fantasy category…

scientificillustration:

Egg capsules, eggs, embryos and newly hatched young of Heterodontus japonicus (Japanese bullhead shark) 

Source: The heterodondit sharks: their natural history and the external development of Heterodontus japonicus based on notes and drawings by Bashford Dean by Bertram G. Smith

The Bashford Dean memorial volume : archaic fishes

Little guy looks a lot like our swell shark on this coast.

(via scinerds)

mucholderthen:

Tumblr’s Favorite Stomatopod: the Peacock Mantis Shrimp
Art by Bethany Van Scott  [blattaphile on deviantART and Facebook]

• The rainbow (or ‘peacock’… or ‘thumbsplitter’) mantis shrimp isn’t a mantis and it isn’t a shrimp, but rather a distant relative of the shrimp and lobster.  
• VERY powerful, capable of breaking through 1/4 inch glass tank and ‘punching’ with its raptorial claw, over 100 times its body weight.
• One of the few species that uses fluorescence to signal each other.
• They have the most sophisticated eyesight of any animal on earth. Humans see 3 pigments while some species of mantis shrimp have more than 10 pigments sensitive to different wavelengths of light.

Part of a series in honor of BADASS CRUSTACEAN WEEK

(via scientificillustration)

griseus:

La primera ave marina en ser identificada en 55 años es la Golondrina de mar (Oceanites pincoyae) y fue hallada en Chile, en el Seno de Reloncavi, al sur de Puerto Montt.

Fotografía de Rodrigo Reyes e Ilustración de Daniel Martínez, a partir de las fotografías de Harrison y O’Keeffe.

Ah, storm petrels!  Such cute wee seabirds -they’re like sea swallows.  When I was an observer on boats in the Gulf of Maine, we’d start seeing when a few miles offshore, never really close to land.  They hover above the water like the top picture, dipping down to pick up tiny floating bits of food and pattering their feet on the water’s surface - very graceful.  You’d start noticing those white spots on their rumps before you ever saw the actual birds.  Mother Carey’s Chickens is another common name for them.

(via scientificillustration)

animaltoday:

Starry Night Octopus (Octopus leutus)

This octopus is nocturnal and very rare.  During the day it hides out under rocks and in sea debris.  It prefers sandy, rubble filled areas.  

In its normal state, it is a dark red/brown color.  When threatened, its skin changes texture and it flashes the white spots on its body that give it its name.  This is the only pigment change it can make.  Its body and tentacles can stretch to about 3 feet.  

So far, it has been found in the shallower seas of Indonesia and surrounding waters.  Since it is strictly nocturnal, it is hard to find and a rare sight.  The octopus is not well known and few data exists currently. 

See blog for more. 

(via rhamphotheca)

sabpie:

Guys. This is the project I’m most proud of right now.

In my Integrated Media Elective our first large scale project was to create a game, so I made this game based on the food chain. Each animal was traditionally drawn and rendered and then digitally colored.

MY PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT YET. THE TIME TAKEN WAS INSANE, OKAY?

I love the octopus the most.

Looks like a fun (I mistyped that as fin, which is also applicable) game.

(via scientificillustration)

(via How do starfish keep their cool? - The Washington Post)

Sea stars found to shunt excess heat (common in tide pools) from their central disk to extemities, but at a cost of shedding that limb later if damaged.

thelovelyseas:

odditiesoflife:

Leafy Sea Dragons

These stunning sea dragon pictures illuminate their mysterious beauty and extraordinary adaptations. The near-invisibility of their fins gives the sea dragons the appearance of floating seaweed that is drifting with the currents. Instead of scales, they have protective armor to ward off predators. The row of spines along their backs can also wound attackers. At other times they will curl into balls like porcupines in self defense. Truly extraordinary creatures.

so lovely

Have another sygnathid.

When we go the aquarium, the fry often have to drag me away from their tank.  I could stay there all day.

odditiesoflife:

The Astonishing Annual Red Crab Migration

Named one of the planet’s most breathtaking migrations, the Christmas Island red crab exodus is a natural phenomenon that continues to astonish.

Making it onto CNN Travel’s recent list of the “10 most spectacular wildlife migrations,” the island’s annual red crab migration is an astounding event that involves the movement of millions of vividly colored crabs as they leave their in-land homes to breed and release eggs into the sea.

An Australian territory, Christmas Island lies some 2,600 kilometers north-west of Perth in the middle of the Indian Ocean. While just 1,500 people live there, it is home to an estimated 120 million crabs.

While mostly terrestrial, they still have to seek the ocean for the next generation.  I would love to go see this sometime.

(via neil-gaiman)

animaltoday:

Deocata Pipefish (Microphis deocata) 

aka Rainbow Freshwater Pipefish

This small cousin of the seahorse is a freshwater pipefish native to India and Bangladesh.  They can grow up to about 6 inches.  

Their colorful belly extrusion is actually a sail-like membrane that can be hidden or pulled out to reveal a colorful striped display.  The stripes are displayed by the females courting males to hold their eggs.  The eggs are held in a pouch under the tail, and only take about 15 days to hatch.  

In the wild, these vulnerable and defenseless pipefishes are vulnerable and even in captivity are very uncommon.  Advanced aquarists covet this beautiful fish, but they are hard to keep as they are so sensitive to food, temperature and water cleanliness.  

(via rhamphotheca)

astronomy-to-zoology:

Eastern Grass Shrimp (Palaemonetes paludosus)

Also known as the ghost or glass shrimp, the eastern grass shrimp is a species of freshwater glass shrimp native to the Appalachian Mountains, Louisiana, and parts of Texas and California. Eastern grass shrimp usually inhabit slow moving freshwater streams, ponds and lakes where they feed on algae, plants and small insects nocturnally.Their transparency acts as near perfect camouflage as predators can see right through them, they support this by manipulating their pigment granules to match closely with their background. Eastern grass shrimp have also become fairly popular in the aquarium trade as well.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Arthropoda-Crustacea-Malacostraca-Decapoda-Caridea-Palaemonidae-Palaemonetes-paludosus

Image Source(s)

Um.  I quite often lump freshwater species in with “marine” tags, forgive me.  Just look at it as my synonym for “aquatic,” ok?

(via rhamphotheca)

juliamckenzieartist:

Art work finished for new laser cut screen print based on my Great Grandfathers diaries as a sea captain in the 1890’s.

“the perilous voyages of captain JH Lowry’

next screen printing and laser cutting