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Justin Ries, a former postdoctoral scholar at WHOI, and colleagues Anne Cohen and Dan McCorkle grew 18 species of shell-building marine organisms in tanks under air containing different concentrations of…

A miniature serpent? Scientists found this glassy planktonic worm in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. A relative of earthworms, it uses its red-tipped swimming paddles to swim through the water…

The ocean plays a critical role in Earth’s climate system. For the first time, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will include an Oceans Day. Held on December 14, Oceans…

Three views of one animal look like a magical dancing sprite in the night sea. A relative of the Man-o’-War, the predatory siphonophore Rhizophysa, is four inches high when contracted…

Back in 2006, engineering tech Andy Billings (left) and then Alvin pilot Anthony Tarantino finish securing the submersible on the deck of the research vessel Atlantis. The Human Occupied Vehicle…

This tiny — about 1 centimeter in diameter — sea urchin made its way from the ocean floor near the Galapagos Rift into the collection basket of the Deep Submergence…

Crew members of the R/V Knorr offload the Long Core system ‘core barrel car’ as the Knorr arrives home from nearly eight months of work in the Pacific.The pneumatic car…

A mockup of the 42-foot Aluminaut, shown at WHOI in 1961. The deep submergence vehicle (DSV) was owned by the Reynolds Metals Co. (later Reynolds Aluminum) and operated briefly by…

Salps are planktonic filter-feeders — each one a tireless vacuum continuously clearing phytoplankton cells from the sea by filtering water through a mucus net as it swims. These marine animals…

Krill are very small crustaceans of the sea that eat even smaller creatures called phytoplankton. Krill play a major role in the food chain because they provide food for a…

Early image of the catamaran Lulu, the first support ship for the submersible Alvin (in foreground), circa 1965. The 105-foot Lulu was built in Woods Hole from surplus minesweeping pontoons and…

These Basket stars were collected in Barrow Canyon, Alaska, using a Tucker Trawl during a research cruise led by biologist Carin Ashjian in 2009. Basket stars are a type of…

Sunset on the RV Atlantic Explorer during a research cruise in September 2009 in the Sargasso Sea as part of the Twilight Zone Explorer research project led by Ken Buesseler. …

The new hybrid underwater robotic vehicle, called Nereus (rhymes with “serious”) prepares to launch during an October 2009 expedition to the Mid-Cayman Rise —one of the deepest points in the…