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Evolution

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BLOG POST So You Think You're Smarter Than a Cephalopod? The blanket octopus can rip a poisonous tentacle from a Portuguese man-o-war and wield it like a sword to ward off enemies as it soars through the ocean trailing its webbed cloak behind it....MORE STORIES


	AUDIO MORE AUDIO Sea Slugs: One Species at a Time Come one, come all! See the amazing, the astonishing, half-animal, half-plant! J...
	BLOG POST MORE STORIES Surveying Life On Sea Turtles “It is strange to think of a sea turtle as an ecosystem,” says Amanda Feuerstein...
	PHOTO MORE PHOTOS Amphipod Under Arctic Sea Ice Several species of amphipod like this one, Gammarus wilkitzkii, live permanently...

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					Elevator Rudists May 1, 2013 - 9:48AMThese "elevator" rudists, an ancient bivalve, used one long heavy valve to anchor themselves in the sediment. They used their tentacles (shown here in pink) to filter food from the sea water. Discover more about the ancient...

Ancient Entoproct Community

Jan 18, 2013 - 10:28AM

For a long time, scientists thought that some small tentacled fossils were...

Early Whale with Webbed Feet

Aug 21, 2012 - 8:51AM

This early whale was well suited to life at sea. But it also lived on land....

SPOTLIGHT


Bioluminescent Animals Photo Gallery Bioluminescence is one of the more captivating adaptations that have evolved in marine animals. It's the ability of...

Deep Ocean Diversity Dec 8 2009 - 4:08pm See some of the remarkable adaptations that deep-sea animals have evolved. Learn more about their habitat and how marine scientists research it in our Deep Ocean Exploration section.	Did Whale Evolution Go Backwards? Sep 24 2010 - 12:25pm Whales swim, but their ancestors walked. Whales are mammals (like us) whose ancestors lived on land. Life probably began in the ocean and then evolved to colonize the land. Yet the whale’s ancestors gradually moved from land to sea, adapting to their circumstances and surroundings. The ocean...
Amphipod Under Arctic Sea Ice Jan 6 2011 - 3:36pm Several species of amphipod like this one, Gammarus wilkitzkii, live permanently within Arctic sea ice. These animals are endemic, meaning they only live here. They acclimate to a wide range of salt levels in the water using a physiological response called osmoregulation.	Cockatoo Squid Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am This transparent cockatoo squid (Leachia sp.), also known as a glass squid, lives in the depths of the ocean and has many adaptations to help it survive there. It retains ammonia solutions inside its body that give it a balloon-like shape and help it float. It has large eyes and pigment-filled...
Excavating a "toothed" baleen whale from Vancouver Island May 7 2012 - 3:34pm The whales that we see in today's world can broadly be split into two groups: those with teeth (odontocetes), and those that have baleen (mysticetes) instead of teeth. These two groups share a common ancestor in the Eocene, which had teeth (They looked a lot like the ancient whale skeletons in the...	The Whale Family Tree Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am This family tree shows how the ancestors of whales moved gradually from land to sea. Early whales took advantage of abundant marine resources. Baleen whales evolved later as polar climates cooled and marine resources became more concentrated, making filter feeding effective. Learn more at "Did...
Ancient Entoproct Community Jan 18 2013 - 10:28am For a long time, scientists thought that some small tentacled fossils were early ancestors of jellyfish. But a new study has found that these ancient animals are actually related to an entirely different group of animals: the entoprocts, which are still alive today. The new fossil (Cotyledion...	Video of the Palauan primitive cave eel (Protanguilla palau) Aug 16 2011 - 2:31pm A video of the Palauan primitive cave eel (Protanguilla palau) swimming in the Pacific off the Republic of Palau. Jiro Sakaue, a Japanese research diver, first discovered the new genus and species in a Palauan reef cave in 2009.
Dispatches from the Field: Treacherous stream crossings and a new fossil find May 11 2012 - 9:58am Editor's note: Read Nick's first blog post about "toothed" baleen whales to see what their team is excavating on Vancouver Island.	Evolution of Whales Animation Sep 30 2009 - 11:21am Whales have existed for million of years. Watch this animation, from the Sant Ocean Hall, to see how they evolved from land-dwellers to the animals we know today. Discover more about whale evolution in our Ocean Over Time interactive. Note: this video contains no audio.
Cambrian Period (542 – 488 Million Years Ago) Sep 20 2011 - 4:20pm The basic body plans of all modern animals were set during the Cambrian Period, 542 - 488 million years ago. Your friends, family, and pet turtle may not look much like the creatures here. But we and our fellow animals are heirs of these ancient ocean dwellers. Changes in Earth’s climate and ocean...	Menopausal Moms: A Mammal Mystery May 6 2011 - 3:07pm In honor of Mother's Day, the Citizens of the Sea blog salutes ocean-going mothers everywhere. Especially a 60 year-old albatross named Wisdom. She holds the seabird records for both oldest bird and oldest new mother. No stranger to motherhood, it is estimated that she has already birthed 30-35...
Darwin’s Evolutionary Tree Diagram Jul 2 2010 - 12:33pm This 1837 sketch is Charles Darwin’s first diagram of an evolutionary tree. It appears in his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837).	Multispecies Communities of Seacows Jan 26 2012 - 11:53am Sirenians, or seacows, are a group of marine mammals that include manatees and dugongs. Currently, only a single species of seacow is found anywhere in the world. However, the fossil record of seacows, which dates back 50 million years, tells a different story.
Scientists Call New Eel Species A Living Fossil Aug 17 2011 - 12:09pm Scientists at the Smithsonian and partnering organizations have discovered a remarkably primitive eel in a fringing reef off the coast of the Republic of Palau. This fish exhibits many primitive anatomical features unknown in the other 19 families and more than 800 species of living eels, resulting...	So You Think You're Smarter Than a Cephalopod? May 5 2011 - 4:41pm The blanket octopus can rip a poisonous tentacle from a Portuguese man-o-war and wield it like a sword to ward off enemies as it soars through the ocean trailing its webbed cloak behind it.