Deep-sea worms have evolved an amazing array of body types and survival strategies. The latest addition to this collection of oddities is a group of swimming worms with small oval sacs of fluid hanging from their bodies, just behind their heads.

New calculations made by marine chemists from MBARI suggest that low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century.

Many animals (including humans) spend a great deal of time selecting and fighting to keep their mates. Octopuses, which tend to be loners, have never been shown to engage in such complicated reproductive strategies. However, a new research paper by MBARI postdoctoral fellow Christine Huffard shows that at least one type of octopus (and probably others) do engage in elaborate "mating games."

Over the last five years, large, predatory Humboldt squid have moved north from equatorial waters and invaded the sea off Central California, where they may be decimating populations of Pacific hake, an important commercial fish.

According to a new study in this week’s journal Science these floating islands of ice—some over 20 kilometers (12 miles) across—are having a major impact on the ecology and chemistry of the ocean around them.

It sounds like a junior high school riddle—"What lives 3,000 feet below the ocean surface, is about the size of a marble, and looks like the back side of a pig?" MBARI biologist Karen Osborn and her colleagues recently came up with an answer to this riddle by combining modern DNA analysis with traditional methods of scientific observation.

On September 17, 2006, researchers from NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary program and MBARI will embark on a expedition to study the submerged wreck of the airship USS Macon, the largest and last U.S.-built, rigid lighter-than-air craft.

A unique paper by researchers at MBARI and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary describes how a deep-sea communications cable affects animals living on and within the seafloor.

The world's oceans harbor a wide variety of squid, from 10-centimeter-long market squid to the elusive giant squid, which may grow to over 20 meters in length. Based on decades of observations, marine biologists assumed that all of these species of squids laid their eggs in clusters on the sea floor, where the eggs developed and hatched without any help from their parents.

Each winter, storm waves sweep thousands of tons of beach sand along the coast of Monterey Bay. This sand is carried parallel to shore until it reaches Moss Landing, where it enters the head of Monterey Canyon.

As successful fishermen know, if you want to catch fish, you have to use the right bait or lure. This is true even in the deep sea, where scientists recently discovered a new species of jelly that attracts fish by wiggling hundreds of glowing red lures.

After analyzing hundreds of hours of deep-sea video, Bruce Robison and his colleagues found that "sinkers"—the cast-off mucus nets of small midwater animals called larvaceans—are a significant source of food for deep-sea organisms.

MBARI oceanographer John Ryan recently published a scientific paper describing how Monterey Canyon can influence the growth and distribution of phytoplankton.

This February, MBARI geologists are using the research vessel Western Flyer and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Tiburon to explore several submarine canyons and undersea landslides off the Southern California coast.

Scientists studying a whale carcass in Monterey Canyon recently announced the discovery of two new species of unique worms that feed on the bones of dead whales.

Wart-like bumps of stinging cells cover the feeding arms and bell of a newly described deep-sea jelly. The description was published by MBARI biologists in this month’s issue of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.

In photographs, it looks like a big red spaceship cruising the ocean depths. But it’s actually a new species of jelly that was discovered and described by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. MBARI scientists published their research on this unusual animal in a recent online version of the journal Marine Biology.

In the late 1930s, California's sardines supported the biggest fishery in the western hemisphere, with more than half a million tons of fish caught each year. By the mid-1950s, the sardines had virtually disappeared. Although fishing pressure may have played a part in this process, new research published in the current issue of Science indicates that the sardines' demise was part of a 50-year cycle that affects not just California, but the entire Pacific Ocean.

In February of 2002, MBARI researchers Robert Vrijenhoek and Shana Goffredi discovered a recent whale fall while exploring the outer portion of the Monterey Canyon with a remotely operated vehicle.

Robert Vrijenhoek, an evolutionary geneticist at MBARI, has spent his career studying how an organism’s genes can shape its interactions with its surroundings, the evolution of its species as a whole, and—if the animal is endangered—its conservation. Thirteen years ago, he turned his attention to the exotic organisms that populate hydrothermal vents and cold seeps.