AUTHOR Tara Haelle
New discoveries in the ocean never end, but sometimes even the ocean’s largest animals can evade scientists. It takes perseverance, a bit of luck and sometimes help from everyday people […]
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The Marine Science Institute’s monthly column, Science and the SeaTM, is an informative and entertaining article that explains many interesting features of the marine environment and the creatures that live there. Science and the SeaTM articles appear monthly in one of Texas’ most widely read fishing magazines, Texas Saltwater Fishing, the Port Aransas South Jetty newspaper, the Flour Bluff News, and the Island Moon newspaper. Our article archive is available also on our website.
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
They’re tiny and they’re brainless, but the box jellyfish of Australia, known to science as Carukia barnesi, packs a deadly punch — and its victims aren’t random. Researchers already knew […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
Living in near-total darkness requires some creative adaptations both to find food and avoid becoming food. For the red-colored strawberry squid, also called the cock-eyed squid, that creativity involves hundreds […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
It’s said that sharks can smell a drop of blood in water a mile away. Depending on the shark species and its prey, that may be an exaggeration, but these […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
Dads always build the best sand castles — at least when it comes to the white-spotted pufferfish. Males of this recently discovered species build exquisite, circular sand nests on the […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
Although they frequently swim with their massive mouths wide open to feed, basking sharks don’t look like the Jaws-type predator most people think of when they imagine a shark. The […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
The naming of a new genus and species of crab goes to show that the magic of J.K. Rowling can inspire more than just children, and sometimes an “outsider” has […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
They went looking for typical calls of blue, minke, n, humpback and other whales who live in the area of Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, a nearly 100,000-mile region east […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
Bowhead whales and Greenland sharks can live up to two centuries, and century-old Galapagos giant tortoises are just young adults. But none of these creatures can hold a candle to […]
AUTHOR Tara Haelle
A disguise only works if others can’t detect it, whether on land or under the sea. Mirror-like scales help many fish blend into the water, but can predators see through […]