AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
You might imagine marine snails crawling around on the sea floor. But thanks to a unique adaptation, one family of snails lives life at the top of the ocean. Violet […]
Print Articles
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 Mandy Calkins
If you think a fish out of water would be easy to catch, you haven’t encountered the Pacific leaping blenny. This acrobatic, slippery little fish can be found hopping and […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
Wind and gravity aren’t the only forces that move the ocean’s water — there’s also a conveyor belt at work. The Great Ocean Conveyor works by thermohaline circulation — water […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
Bluefin tuna migrate thousands of miles, but exactly how they find their way through the vast blue is a mystery. One answer may lie with the tuna’s “third eye.” Researchers […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
Imagine a Komodo dragon the size of a large whale and you’ve got a rough picture of the mosasaur, one of the most fearsome predators in the oceans’ history. Top […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
On the Great Barrier Reef lurks a creature straight out of science fiction, with many arms, stinging spines, and a monstrous appetite. {mosimage} Meet the crown-of-thorns, a real Godzilla among […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
With shells covered in algae and barnacles, decorator crabs are experts at blending in with their environments. But for one species of crab, it’s not just camouflage that keeps the […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
When it comes to finding food and shelter on the vast open ocean, some petrels and related seabirds simply follow their noses. Petrels are pelagic birds, which means they spend […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
With its streamlined shape, the blue shark is built for efficient swimming. But more impressive than its streamlined efficiency are the distances this shark covers in ocean-crossing migrations. The blue […]
AUTHOR Mandy Calkins
In the ocean’s dim depths, it’s not easy being green; that’s why some plant-like organisms use different pigments to survive. Like terrestrial plants, marine phytoplankton and algae use the pigment […]