Thank you for sharing this! This is another one of those situations where we are just now seeing the noticeable, dramatic payoff of years and years of quiet, unnoticed environmental work.

"Experts say years of conservation efforts have resulted in some of the healthiest waters in generations, with booming fish populations, clearer ocean waves and more chances to interact with our urban aquarium."

This quote also really got me:

"'It never gets old, it’s always thrilling,' said Celia Ackerman, a naturalist with American Princess Cruises who captured the images. As a child growing up in Brooklyn, Ackerman couldn’t wait to move out of the city so she could study marine animals. 'I would have never imagined I could enjoy them here right in my backyard.'"

David Clode

Great White Shark

Welcome to Australia maaate 🇦🇺

floating on to better things…

shot on kodak portra 800 // buy a print here

Lion's Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata)

Family: Cyaneid Jellyfish Family (Cyaneidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Unassessed

Named for its frilly "mane" made up of over 1,200 long, stinging tentacles, the Lion's Mane Jellyfish is among the largest known jellyfish species; while this viral image showing a diver next to a Lion's Mane Jellyfish has been edited to make the jellyfish appear far larger than it actually is, members of this species still dwarf most of their relatives, with a bell ("main body") diameter of over 2.4 meters (7.89 feet) and a tentacle length of as much as 30 meters (98.4 feet), making it one the longest animals on earth. Typically found near the surface in the Arctic, northern Atlantic and northern Pacific Ocean regions, Lion's Mane Jellyfishes, like all jellyfishes, lack brains, eyes, hearts or respiratory organs (instead exchanging gasses directly between the water around them and their extremely thin tissues,) and rely heavily on waves and ocean tides to travel, but are able to slowly propel themselves in a given direction by expanding the 8 bag-like lobes of their bodies to take in water and then forcing it out again to push themselves along (although they can also to some extent detect and react to their orientation and surroundings owing to a series of frilly sensory structures located around their body's rim, know as rhopalia.) Like most jellyfishes the long, trailing tentacles of a Lion's Mane Jellyfish are lined with touch-sensitive, harpoon-like cells called cnidocytes that fire venomous barbs into any animal that touches them, and after a tentacle has stung and ensnared suitable prey (mainly fish, large plankton and smaller jellyfishes) it is pulled back towards the body where the prey is passed through a mouth-like opening on the jellyfish's underside and into a simple body cavity where it is digested, with any indigestible matter, such as shells or bones, later being ejected from the body through the same opening it entered through. The life cycle of the Lion's Mane Jellyfish, like that of most jellyfishes, takes place in 4 distinct stages and seems highly elaborate compared to that of most animals; the bag-like adults that we typically think of as jellyfishes, known as medusas, are either male or female and reproduce sexually by releasing gametes into the water around them, and should these gametes meet they fuse and develop into tiny larvae. The larvae then settle onto a solid surface and develop into polyps (a second, immobile life stage resembling a sea anemone,) and each polyp then asexually reproduces several times, with genetically identical, slow-swimming young splitting off of its body as buds. Each of these asexually-produced individuals will then develop into a medusa, continuing the cycle and meaning that each single instance of sexual reproduction in Lion's Mane Jellyfishes produces multiple asexually-produced offspring. Despite their massive size medusas of this species only live for around a year, although their polyps, which only reproduce under ideal environmental conditions, may remain dormant for longer than this.

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Image Source: here

The deep ocean is home to some fucking nightmare fuel creatures.

I mean fucking hell!

The bigfin squid (don’t look it up)

Angler fish (don’t look it up!)

All kinds of indescribable weird beasties.

The House in the Ocean.

And many other such incomprehensible horrors.

Short-finned Pilot Whale Globicephala macrorhynchus

Family: Delphinidae Genus: Globicephala Subspecies: 00

Feed: Mollusks Habitat: Coastal Waters Status and Conservation: Least Concern This whale is known by various names. Pilot whales were originally associated with the theory that a leader of the pod was piloting them. There is also Pothead Whale, but the Melon-Headed Whale deserves better. And, of course, there is "Blackfish," which is a term used when we are uncertain about the exact identity of various marine animals. Wanna see the whole illustration? Join the club here. $3 a month. Fin del comunicado.

Understanding Lobster Behavior: The Territorial Clash of the Crustaceans

Dive into the intriguing world of lobsters as we explore why older lobsters defend their reef territories against younger intruders. Learn about the fascinating aspects of lobster behavior in their natural habitat.

A protective lobster defends its reef from an inquisitive young intruder. Have you ever witnessed an older lobster pushing a younger one away from a reef crevice and wondered why? This intriguing behavior is not just a random act of crustacean crankiness but a vital part of their survival strategy. Let’s explore the fascinating reasons behind these territorial clashes in the underwater world of…

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A Blink of An Eye 21 x 27 cm ✦ Watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil on paper Available as print

Eels and freshwater mussels have at least one thing in common: in the last century both have become extremely endangered. Their numbers have plummeted due to radical changes in river habitats, such as damming, water pollution, invasive species introduced by humans – the list goes on.

These two particular species have sustained for hundreds of millions of years. I wonder if our own species could ever achieve anything like it – or if we're here just to wipe it out.

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Bobtail Squid Appreciation 💙

The slugs have chosen a princess.

Hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus)

Family: Wrasse Family (Labridae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Vulnerable

Named for its elongated snout which it uses to root through sediment in search of crabs and other seabed-dwelling prey, the Hogfish is a unique species of wrasse native to the western Atlantic Ocean, where it mainly inhabits areas near coral reefs (particularly reefs dominated by soft corals.) All Hogfishes are born as females, but as they progress through their lives some may develop into males upon reaching older age; members of this species live in small schools consisting of numerous small females and a single large male (which can be distinguished from the females around him by his larger size, darker colouration, longer fin spines and the distinctive black spot near the base of his tail,) responsible for fertilizing all the group's eggs, and in the event of the school's male dying or otherwise being separated from the rest of the group the largest, oldest remaining female will lose the ability to lay eggs, increase in size, develop the colouration of a male and gain the ability to produce sperm, taking his place. In addition to changing in colouration when changing sex, Hogfishes are also known to be capable of changing colour in order to avoid detection by predators (taking on duller colouration to match their surroundings upon spotting predators such as Sand Tiger Sharks,) and surprisingly it seems this colour-changing ability is managed purely by the chromatophores (colour-changing cells) in their skin with little input from the brain, as the skin will continue to change colour to match its surroundings for a short period even after being removed from the fish's body.

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Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/49432-Lachnolaimus-maximus

Blobfish Appreciation Post