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Multimedia Items


Diving to Octopus Garden in a Submarine

Check out this amazing footage taken from WHOI’s submersible Alvin in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS), where thousands of mother octopuses were discovered nursing their eggs in a place known as Octopus Garden. WHOI principal engineer Andy Bowen talks with Chad King, a research specialist with MBNMS, about the animals and how federally-protected marine sanctuaries are critical to the health and protection of these incredible ecosystems.

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Discover Octopus Garden

Watch this amazing footage and learn some cool facts about octopus living two miles below the ocean’s surface, where thousands of mother octopuses were discovered nursing their eggs in a place known as Octopus Garden in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS).

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Hide Out

Hide Out

An anemone fish finds refuge in its namesake location—an anemone. This pair were photographed in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), a place that has drawn attention from scientists for…

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At Home in the Tentacles

At Home in the Tentacles

A pink anemonefish peers out from the tentacles of a big anemone in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, where WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold was part of an international team that…

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Eye in the Skies

Eye in the Skies

A modified quadcopter drone gave WHOI researchers and colleagues a bird’s-eye view and computer-automated counts of a new “supercolony” of more than 1.5 million Adelie penguins in the Danger Islands—a…

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Safe Haven

Safe Haven

An anemone fish finds refuge in its namesake location–an anemone. This pair were photographed in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), a place that has drawn attention from scientists of…

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Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight

Can you spot the pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus sp.)? (Hint: Its head is pointing back and to the left, with its left eye partly visible.) This little fellow, about a quarter…

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Celebrating World Oceans Day

Celebrating World Oceans Day

On World Oceans Day, let us give thanks for some of the ocean’s largest and fiercest inhabitants, like this school of blackfin barracuda (Sphyraena qenie), hovering near a coral reef…

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Central American Beauty

Central American Beauty

A baby reef squid found its way into the nets of WHOI researchers as they worked in the waters around Belize to study the connectivity of reef ecosystems. Biologists and…

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Corals Under Threat

Corals Under Threat

A large school of bigeye trevally swim past a submarine carrying WHOI scientists descending in Cabu Pulmo National Park, home of the oldest of only three coral reefs on the…

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Reservation Required?

Reservation Required?

Restoff Island in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, is a biodiversity hotspot that is home to hundreds of coral reef fish species. It is also one of eight sites sampled…

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Settling Behavior

Settling Behavior

Marine reserves promote coral reef sustainability by preventing overfishing and increasing fish abundance and diversity. But to be effective, they need to be sized right, and in a way that…

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Are Reefs Resilient?

Are Reefs Resilient?

Hannah Barkley, a recent graduate of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, presents her thesis research on coral reef health in the Rock Islands of Palau. Since 2011, Barkley has worked with…

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Back to School

Back to School

A large school of bigeye trevally swam past a submarine carrying WHOI scientists descending in Cabu Pulmo National Park, home of the oldest of only three coral reefs on the…

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Haven for seabirds

Haven for seabirds

The small coral islands of the remote Phoenix Islands are important resting and nesting areas for millions of seabirds, some of them rare and endangered. Over time, seafaring Polynesians, explorers,…

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The Ear Bone’s Connected to the Fish Home

The Ear Bone's Connected to the Fish Home

WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold holds a fish otolith—an ear bone—that can serve as a natural tag to reconstruct the history of temperatures and seawater chemistry wherever a fish has lived.…

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