planet ocean babey!!

I don’t rly take care of this blog but this is my ocean blog! Aspiring marine scientist / ecosystem engineer

[montereybayaquarium]

If you’ve gotta catch a red-eye, make it a Polyorchis penicillatus bell jelly! 

Lining the rim of its crystal-clear bell are a myriad of red eye-spots that help the jelly sense light and dark. A large smack of bell jellies—with their sights set on Monterey beaches—gave local diver Phil Lemley an eyeful this weekend!

[wavemotions]

Pelagia Noctiluca by Sergi Escandell

[ricecucker-deactivated20210530]

Why do Thornback Cowfishs look like you just insulted their mother

[nubbsgalore]

this is a sea angel (clione limacina), photographed by alexander semenov swimming with its wing like fins in russia’s white sea. these translucent pteropods, measuring only a few centimeters in length, are actually sea snails sans shells. lacking this cumbersome but protective shell, sea angels instead synthesize bad tasting compounds that dissuade predators from eating them. (see also: bobtail squid and josh lambus’ work)

[glumshoe]

The harp sponge, or Chondrocladia lyra, is a species of deep-sea carnivorous sponge. Researches with the Monterrey Bay Research Aquarium Institute discovered in 2012 at a depth of nearly two miles below sea level. The sponge preys upon small crustaceans using sharp spicules - tiny, velcro-like hooks - to capture prey, then secretes a digestive membrane to envelop and break it down into particles small enough to be absorbed through the sponge’s pores. 

[rhamphotheca]

Juvenile Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola)

One of the ocean’s oddest looking fish, the Mola Mola possesses a truly bizarre body shape, likened to a gigantic ‘swimming head.’  Female sunfish are known to produce up to 300 million eggs at one time, the largest number of eggs ever recorded in a vertebrate.

Where and when the sunfish spawns is not well known, although five possible areas have been identified in the North and South Atlantic, the North and South Pacific, and in the Indian Ocean, where there are central rotating oceanic currents, called gyres. The newly hatched sunfish measure just 0.25 centimetres in length, and will increase in mass by over 60 million times in order to reach the size of a 3 metre adult.

(via: MIssion Blue - Sylvia Earle Alliance)       (Photo: (c) Sailroe)

[everythingfox]

LMAO (🔊)

[drinkyourjuiceshelby]

Getting the morning ocean gossip

[tigerleggies-deactivated2019121]

[grubisland-deactivated20251130]

Tiny clownfish on a green anemone by Alastair Pollock on Flickr.

[nature-and-biodiversity-blog]

Miniature Melo Micromelo undatus Source: Here

[nature-and-biodiversity-blog]

Plankton: the diverse collection of organisms that live in large bodies of water and are unable to swim against a current Source: Here

[lavenderlundi]

Lmao exactly. Earths dying but the Notre Dame looks pretty so uwu yay!

[stellarseeming]

So you’re telling me all that damn garbage in the Pacific can be cleaned up that easily if a few billionaires cared enough about the planet to save it????

[lavenderlundi]

Yep

[iwilleatyourenglish]

nope! the problem is far more complex than that and this oversimplification isn’t helping anyone. we don’t know how much money it would cost to clean up the garbage patch, but it will be definitely be more than a few billion.

in order to truly clean it up, we would need to do the following:

remove the central mass of trash and find a way to dispose of it safely, which in itself will cost a massive amount of money. right now, the Dutch nonprofit Ocean Cleanup has tried to implement new tech to do so, but there have been several failures, since it’s pretty new territory. luckily, they’ve said they’re making progress and hope to be back to at least containing the garbage this summer.

track and remove patches of garbage that break off from the main mass.

clear up microplastics. plastics do not completely breakdown so much as they just fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, which is devastating for a great deal of ocean life, including algae. Green Peace (which has a five star rating on Charity Navigator!) is currently studying microplastics in order to find a way clean them up.

clean up microfibers. microfibers are microscopic pieces of plastic shed by a great deal of clothing. Green Peace is currently studying these, as well.

find a way to clean the bottom of the ocean, where a massive amount of garbage settles.

again, much of the technology needed for clean up is in its early stages. research alone will require a ton of funding.

and the thing is, this clean up will be a temporary solution to a much greater problem: the continued pollution of our oceans by corporations. 

as much as 80 percent of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from North American and Asian land activities, the majority of that being the result of corporations devastating the environment with their noxious means of production and environmentally unfriendly products (particularly styrofoam and single use plastics).

until our politicians stop enabling corporations’ destructive habits, we cannot permanently solve this problem. we need laws that restrict pollution by corporations and are actually enforced, and laws to force companies to transition away from single-use plastics and other environmentally harmful materials. and we–particularly in America–need a society that acknowledges things like climate change and educates its people on just how bad things really are in order to further put pressure on corporations.

so what can the average person do?

first and foremost, elect officials who aren’t capitalists and who are adamantly pro-environment with comprehensive policies on addressing corporate pollution. this is the biggest thing we can do to take corporations to task and force change.

share information with others about what’s happening and inspire them to want to make a change, too.

if you can, donate to and/or volunteer for legitimate organizations like Green Peace, Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, and Coral Reef Alliance, which are all dedicated to cleaning up the ocean.

help with brand auditing.

i know this isn’t always possible for people for a wide variety of reasons–from economic to accessibility–but, if you can, try to be more mindful of your own choices. use backpacks and reusable bags instead of plastic bags at the grocery store. avoid supporting corporations like Coca Cola who are devastating the environment. don’t litter, especially at the beach. recycle.

passing around memes like this does nothing at all. it’s not like it’s going to shame billionaires into not being greedy bastards.

[thelovelyseas]

Beroe forskalii by Alexander Semenov

[100leaguesundertheseaa]

Crazy jellyfish, Bruneii by SCUBAZOO on Flickr.

[sarahmackattack]

Check this shit out. Amazing. This squid is using its tentacle to lure prey by MAKING IT LOOK LIKE A SMALLER SQUID. 

[theoceaniswonderful]

2009 Komodo by Chip and Susan

[the-seventy-percent]

Sorry I havent been very active, i have a lot of stuff going on right now with school and this summer i'll be even busier but thanks for sticking around! I'll find some pictures and post them a little later. hope you're all doing okay!

[the-seventy-percent]

20140223-0056-Edit (by cbabbitt)