Sea Life News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Cleaner Fish: Tiny Healers or Hidden Spreaders in Coral Reef Ecosystems?

June 12, 2025 — Reef "beauty salons" staffed by tiny cleaner fish aren t just for parasite removal they may also shape the microbial life of the entire ecosystem. A fascinating new study shows these bustling fish stations influence which microbes move around the ...

Scientists Discover Natural Cancer-Fighting Sugar in Sea Cucumbers

June 11, 2025 — Sea cucumbers, long known for cleaning the ocean floor, may also harbor a powerful cancer-fighting secret. Scientists discovered a unique sugar in these marine creatures that can block Sulf-2, an enzyme that cancer cells use to spread. Unlike ...

Satellite Tracking of 12,000 Marine Animals Reveals Ocean Giants Are in Trouble

June 7, 2025 — A massive global collaboration has tracked over 12,000 marine animals from whales to turtles to create one of the most detailed movement maps of ocean giants ever assembled. The project, MegaMove, ...

Eating an Array of Smaller Fish Could Be Nutrient-Dense Solution to Overfishing

June 3, 2025 — To satisfy the seafood needs of billions of people, offering them access to a more biodiverse array of fish creates opportunities to mix-and-match species to obtain better nutrition from smaller ...

Coastal Alaska Wolves Exposed to High Mercury Concentrations from Eating Sea Otters

May 28, 2025 — Scientists show that wolves that are eating sea otters in Alaska have much higher concentrations of mercury than those eating other prey such as deer and ...

Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs

May 28, 2025 — This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin populations which have exploded due to overfishing in the ...

Nearly Five Million Seized Seahorses Just 'Tip of the Iceberg' in Global Wildlife Smuggling

May 28, 2025 — Close to five million smuggled seahorses worth an estimated CAD$29 million were seized by authorities over a 10-year span, according to a new study that warns the scale of the trade is far larger ...

Oldest Whale Bone Tools Discovered

May 27, 2025 — Humans were making tools from whale bones as far back as 20,000 years ago, according to a new study. This discovery broadens our understanding of early human use of whale remains and offers valuable insight into the marine ecology of the ...

Discovery Offers New Insights Into Skin Healing in Salmon

May 27, 2025 — Scientists have discovered cells in the skin of Atlantic salmon that offer new insights into how wounds heal, tissues regenerate, and cellular transitions support long-term skin ...

The Ocean Seems to Be Getting Darker

May 27, 2025 — Scientists, who have spent more than a decade examining the impact of artificial light at night on the world's coasts and oceans, have shown that more than one-fifth of the global ocean -- an area spanning more than 75 million sq km -- has been the ...

Megalodon: The Broad Diet of the Megatooth Shark

May 26, 2025 — Contrary to widespread assumptions, the largest shark that ever lived -- Otodus megalodon -- fed on marine creatures at various levels of the food pyramid and not just the top. Scientists analyzed the zinc content of a large sample of fossilized ...

How Marine Plankton Adapts to a Changing World

May 23, 2025 — Plankton may be tiny, but they play an important role in the ocean. As the foundation of marine ecosystems, they support ocean food webs and help regulate Earth's climate by storing carbon. While lab studies have shown plankton can adjust their ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:06pm EDT

Scientists Uncover 230 Giant Ocean Viruses That Hijack Photosynthesis

June 6, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered over 200 new giant viruses lurking in ocean waters that not only help shape marine ecosystems but also manipulate photosynthesis in algae. These massive viruses once nearly ...

Whales Blow Bubble Rings--And They Might Be Talking to Us

June 7, 2025 — Humpback whales have been observed blowing bubble rings during friendly interactions with humans a behavior never before documented. This surprising display may be more than play; it could represent ...

Natural Algal Communities Can Inhibit Aquaculture Pathogens

May 21, 2025 — Antimicrobial resistance is a growing issue in aquaculture. Researchers discovered that combinations of bacteria from live-feed microalgae are capable of inhibiting ...

New Study Reveals How Competition Between Algae Is Transforming the Gulf of Maine

May 22, 2025 — New research shows how rapidly proliferating turf algae are waging 'chemical warfare' to inhibit the recovery of kelp forests along Maine's warming ...

Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat

May 22, 2025 — New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75 per ...

Shrinking Nemo: Clownfish Survive Heatwaves by Shrinking

May 21, 2025 — Clownfish have been shown to shrink in order to survive heat stress and avoid social conflict, research ...

'Sharkitecture:' A Nanoscale Look Inside a Blacktip Shark's Skeleton

May 20, 2025 — Using synchrotron X-ray nanotomography with detailed 3D imaging and in-situ mechanical testing, researchers are peering inside shark skeletons at the nanoscale, revealing a microscopic ...

Native Turtles Return to Yosemite After Removal of Invasive Bullfrogs

May 20, 2025 — After invasive American bullfrogs 'croak,' native turtles return to Yosemite, finds a new ...

Thousands of Animal Species Threatened by Climate Change

May 20, 2025 — A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal ...

Surprise Baby Whale Sightings Reveal There's Still Much to Learn About Humpbacks

May 20, 2025 — Humpback whales are not always born in tropical waters, new research has shown -- challenging long-held assumptions about their breeding and ...

Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves

May 16, 2025 — A new study reveals that heat-tolerant symbiotic algae may be essential to saving elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) -- a foundational species in Caribbean reef ecosystems -- from the devastating ...

Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!

May 15, 2025 — A new study shows that seagrass ecosystems along the northern half of Florida's Gulf Coast have remained relatively healthy and undisturbed for the last several thousand ...

An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times

May 14, 2025 — With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it's too ...

Internal Clocks Determine the Ups and Downs of Antarctic Krill

May 9, 2025 — Antarctic krill do not only react to external environmental influences such as light or food. They also use their internal clock to adapt to the extreme conditions of the polar ...

Scottish Shrimp Study Illuminates New Potential for Bait-Less Fishing

May 8, 2025 — Fishing pots fitted with LED lights catch significantly more shrimp and fish, new research ...

Database Reveals Vital Ocean Links to Aid Conservation

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have launched an interactive global map to show the migratory patterns of more than 100 marine species in an effort to protect at-risk ...

Fewer Parasites in the Indian River Lagoon Signal Big Ecosystem Problems

May 7, 2025 — Parasites are crucial indicators of ecosystem health, and their absence can signal trouble. Once pristine, Florida's Indian River Lagoon (IRL) now faces pollution and algal blooms that have ...

Triassic Fossil Reveals Nature's Best Jaw for Hunting Fast Fish

May 7, 2025 — Newly discovered species of extinct fish shows striking similarities to unrelated modern-day predators, suggesting certain traits have emerged multiple times and remained consistent over hundreds of ...

Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience

May 5, 2025 — A new study links grazing halo patterns in coral reefs, as well as those in other patchy habitats, to the spatial patterns of the shelter habitat itself. The researchers found that grazing halos are ...

How Are They Biting? High Speed Video Reveals Unexpected Jaw Movements in Reef Fish

May 5, 2025 — Some reef fish have the unexpected ability to move their jaws from side to side, biologists have discovered. This ability -- which is rare among vertebrate animals -- allows these fish to feed ...

Artificial Oxygen Supply in Coastal Waters: A Hope With Risks

May 5, 2025 — Could the artificial introduction of oxygen revitalise dying coastal waters? While oxygenation approaches have already been proven successful in lakes, their potential side effects must be carefully ...

Blue Tips Are Red Algae's Red Flags

May 5, 2025 — Some red algae exhibit structural color that gives their growth tips a blue hue and the rest of their bodies including their fruiting structures a white hue. Moreover, since the color-producing ...

How Mid-Cretaceous Events Affected Marine Top Predators

May 2, 2025 — The highest trophic niches in Mesozoic oceans were filled by diverse marine reptiles, including ichthyosaurians, plesiosaurians, and thalattosuchians, dominating food webs during the Jurassic and ...

Loss of Sea Ice Alters the Colors of Light in the Ocean

May 2, 2025 — The disappearance of sea ice in polar regions due to global warming not only increases the amount of light entering the ocean, but also changes its color. These changes have far-reaching consequences ...

Designer Microbe Shows Promise for Reducing Mercury Absorption from Seafood

May 1, 2025 — Scientists inserted DNA-encoding methylmercury detoxification enzymes into the genome of an abundant human gut bacterium. The engineered bacterium detoxified methylmercury in the gut of mice and ...

When Sea Stars Fall, Sea Otters Rise: Sea Otters Benefit from Prey Boom Triggered by Loss of Ochre Sea Stars

Apr. 30, 2025 — In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's ...

'Extremely Rare Event': Bone Analysis Suggests Ancient Echidnas Lived in Water

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research questions the evolutionary history of some of our most peculiar ...

Chip-Shop Fish Among Key Seabed Engineers

Apr. 28, 2025 — Many of the fish we eat play a key role in maintaining the seabed -- and therefore our climate, new research ...

'Cryosphere Meltdown' Will Impact Arctic Marine Carbon Cycles and Ecosystems, New Study Warns

Apr. 25, 2025 — A new study has found worrying signs that climate change may be undermining the capacity of Arctic fjords to serve as effective carbon sinks. The findings suggest that the capacity of polar oceans to ...