Warming trends, resilience, forecasting, and the data behind a changing climate.
The bowhead whale is the longest-lived marine mammal known to science. Several lines of evidence indicate that some individuals survive beyond 200 years. The conclusion rests on age estimates from eye tissue, old weapon fragments recovered from whales and the species’ exceptionally slow life history. Bowheads live in Arctic and subarctic seas. They have no…
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A jellyfish is mostly water, but it is not a shapeless bag of seawater. Its body has organized tissue layers, muscles, nerves, a digestive cavity and specialized stinging cells. Water commonly accounts for about 95 percent of its mass, which helps explain both its transparent appearance and its rapid collapse after stranding. The familiar swimming…
Horseshoe crabs are not true crabs. They are marine arthropods in the group Chelicerata, which also includes spiders, scorpions and sea spiders. Their broad shell and coastal habitat explain the familiar name, but their mouthparts, body plan and evolutionary relationships place them far from lobsters and blue crabs. Four living species survive today. The Atlantic…
Dolphins and porpoises are not two names for the same animal. Both are air-breathing marine mammals in the whale order Cetacea and both belong to the toothed-whale group. Their closest similarities explain why a quick glimpse of a gray back at sea may not settle the identification. The most useful clues are the head, teeth…
