Sea Monster

Category: Ocean Critters

  • Sustainable supply for the seahorse trade

    You’ve probably spotted by now that I have a bit of a thing about seahorses. And despite spending a year researching and writing my book, there’s always more to discover about these curious creatures. A little while ago, I picked up a thing or two from seahorse-keeping guru Shawn Garner at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida.…

  • Cuba journal: Top predators on the reef

    Happy World Oceans Day everyone! Wow, it’s hard to compete with Helen’s whale shark story for a close encounter with an awesome sea creature! Since it’s still fresh in my mind, I’ll go with an experience from our recent trip to Cuba. At the risk of giving you a case of elasmobranch overload, this features…

  • Happy World Oceans Day & some memorable seamonster moments

    It’s World Oceans Day. Horray! It’s like a second birthday, a day when we get to do what we like… at least when it comes to talking about how awesome the oceans are. So, here at Seamonster we’ve decided to share with you some of our most awesome moments underwater – when we each met…

  • Jellyfish have eyes AND brains!

    A great article in the NYT by Natalie Angier about the surprising complexity of jellyfish: For all their noble antiquity, jellyfish have long been ignored or misunderstood by mainstream science, dismissed as so much mindless protoplasm with a mouth. Now, in a series of new studies, researchers have found that there is far more complexity…

  • Communing with ocean life makes you kinder

    We’ve all heard about the dark side of violent video games. But is there a bright side to virtual reality?  Personally I’m not a big fan of video games (I appear to be in the minority among modern Americans) but I was intrigued by a recent study that addressed this question using the Wii game…

  • How goliaths used to be

    Ahhhh, those were the good old days… when ladies in bikinis and men with beards and short shorts stood next to really big fish. It’s great to see Emmett’s film of a Goliath grouper in Cuba. This pic is one of many from the archives at the Florida Keys public libraries showing the size of trophy Goliath’s caught…

  • Cuba journal: Goliath

    I’ve been around the block a few times, and dove on quite a few reefs over the years. On most reefs  in the Caribbean — make that the West Atlantic generally — you’d be hard pressed to see a fish big enough to feed 2 or 3 people. But our last week spent in the…

  • Giant predators of the ancient seas

    The creatures, known as anomalocaridids, were already thought to be the largest animals of the Cambrian period. The period was known for the “Cambrian Explosion” that saw the sudden appearance of all the major animal groups and the establishment of complex ecosystems about 540 to 500 million years ago. Scientists previously thought that the animals—which…

  • Coral Spawn: The Movie

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDJvhgPn8o[/youtube]

  • Frogfish eats Lionfish

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUNhQ-uF3T4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] I’m back on those beautiful but pesky invasive lionfish again – this time, it’s not just humans that are eating them. Check out this video by Scubazoo. HT to Ed Blume for the link.