Aerial footage of five killer whales hunting great white sharks

In recent years, orcas have begun sinking boats and other orcas are following in their footsteps

For just over five years, killer whales have been ramming (and occasionally sinking) expensive yachts, sailboats, and fishing boats in waters near European coasts. Scientists believe these incidents are the result of play rather than aggressive attacks.

Deep Blue is the largest great white shark ever caught on camera

In 2019, Deep Blue was one of three huge great whites spotted off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, an uncommon place for sightings of white sharks. The unique series of sightings aroused curiosity and amazement from islanders and scientists alike.

Track individual sharks around the world in real time.

Why no aquarium has a great white shark

Historically, great white sharks die very quickly in captivity—with the exception of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's successful attempt in 2004. The aquarium held a four-year-old great white for six months. Before that, the longest stint was 16 days. The creatures can only breathe if they are moving forward, making survival difficult in a small tank.

Watch the first-ever footage of a ghost shark

In 2009, the pointy-nosed blue chimaera was filmed swimming in the deep sea. That same year, researchers first observed them off the coast of California and Hawaii, after they had previously been found only in the Southern Hemisphere.

A pod of orcas takes down a yacht

The pod rammed the boat’s rudder for about 45 minutes. Authorities were able to get crew members to land safely, but their yacht was irreparably damaged. Check out the story and photos here.

By targeting a diverse range of sick and injured marine life, sharks—a type of predatory keystone species—help keep ocean gene pools healthy and promote biodiversity by keeping prey species in check.

A Canadian tourism campaign turns every whale sighting—including ones from decades ago—into a live, crowdsourced migration biography

Humpback flukes (or tails) are as individually distinct as fingerprints, which means a single photo is enough to match a whale to its full sighting history. Every upload adds a chapter (the database goes back to the 1970s) and the site uses AI to render that data as narrative, not just data.

An image of a shark swimming on the freeway repeatedly fools viewers during natural disasters

The long-running joke traces back to 2011, following Hurricane Irene in Puerto Rico. Since then, pranksters have spread the image after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and Hurricane Laura in 2020. The image is photo-edited, combining a 2005 photo of a kayaker being followed by a great white shark and a photo of a flooded street.

Visualizing the 75 largest underwater animals

With so many fish in the sea, which are the largest? This infographic shows fantastic illustrations of the 75 largest sea animals, ranked by average size. The detailed visual is organized in descending order of size, starting with the blue whale,...

Mosquito-borne illnesses have killed two captive orcas at SeaWorld since they became water park attractions.

Whale falls—dead whales that have fallen to the ocean's floor—can provide enough food to spawn a local ecosystem of deep-sea organisms that lasts for decades.

Once whale songs were discovered, conservation efforts boomed

Until the 1950s, humans believed whales were mute. Once American underwater surveillance systems caught their sounds during the Cold War, the perception of the creatures changed, leading humans to campaign for whaling bans and long-term conservation efforts. These captivating whale songs can be heard throughout the ocean.

Read the 2012 study about captive orcas and the threat of mosquito-borne illness

Written by orca trainers who went on to become scientists, it states mosquitoes bite orcas at night when the animals hang out close to the surface. What's more, antibiotics used to keep captive orcas healthy also may depress their immune response, boosting the risks of them being unable to fight off diseases like West Nile Virus and encephalitis, which have killed orcas at US water parks.

Possible globster sighted on the Oregon coast.

A man riding an ATV on the Oregon coast comes across a “sea monster", which is actually likely a decaying carcass of shark or whale.

'Shark Week' began as a late-summer programming block dedicated to shark conservation and dispelling myths perpetuated by popular media like Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws', but over time, it began incorporating more sensationalized content.

The 10 most amazing deep sea creatures

In this video, researchers from the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium discuss the most fascinating deep sea creatures, and how they developed some of their strangest features.

What happens when a whale dies and falls to the ocean floor

A large whale's body can blanket more than 538 square feet of ocean floor. That's an enormous amount of organic matter, providing food for the ecosystem for centuries. Researchers have discovered bones on the seafloor from whale species that have been extinct for over 100,000 years.

See a gallery of winning photos from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards for 2025

The overall winner was “Ghost Town Visitor," which depicts an extremely rare brown hyena visiting an abandoned mining building in Kolmanskop, Namibia, by South African photographer Wim van den Heever. Other amazing shots include "Orphan of the Road," showing a longhorn beetle observing large machinery, and "Survival Purse," featuring the egg case of a swell shark.

The deep-sea fangtooth has the largest teeth of any marine species relative to body size

From transparent fish to the heaviest worms on the planet, these seven creepy creatures lurk in the deep sea. Learn all about them and the unique traits that help them survive and hunt.

Explore the 2025 Ocean Photographer of the Year winners and finalists

The Ocean Photographer of the Year celebrates and advocates for the ocean and its creatures. From tiny 3mm amphipods to hunting orcas, see a collection of images highlighting the beauty of our blue planet.

Watch how wild animals are projected into a mall

Centered around a dynamic, ever-changing watering hole, the experience allows you to meet a diverse range of animals from Africa to the Arctic as they graze, drink, and interact with the environment around them.

National Geographic presents how to protect the oceans

What can we do to protect and preserve the world's oceans? Be inspired by spectacular wildlife footage from National Geographic while learning key strategies.

The Southern Ocean features the Antarctic Circumpolar Current—the largest ocean current on Earth—which encircles Antarctica and creates a unique biogeographical zone.

Old Thom, the rare solitary orca

This orca has intrigued and perplexed scientists because of its seemingly docile existence separate from other orcas, which are known to be highly social beings.

River dolphins manhandle an unlucky anaconda

The natural world around us is endlessly inspiring, and fascinating, and often very odd too: like when researchers snapped a photo of Bolivian river dolphins swimming around with a Beni anaconda snake in their mouths, for example.

View a gallery of animals found on abyssal plains, hydrothermal vents, seamounts, and other deep-sea habitats.

What animals live in the ocean?

The oceans host an incredible diversity of fascinating species. Oceana's Marine Life Encyclopedia beautifully presents facts and photos of ocean animals from Atlantic Cod to Zebra Sharks.

See an anamorphic illusion of a massive crashing wave in South Korea

An enormous aquarium with perpetually crashing waves has popped up amidst an urban landscape in South Korea, but don’t expect to hear the water sloshing around if you walk by. Designed by District, the elevated tank is actually a massive anamorphic illusion. The digital media company created the pub

Scientists can suck animal DNA from the air

A look at how researchers filtered the air around two zoos and identified genetic material from dozens of species, a technique that could help track and conserve wildlife.

Studying the circadian clock of a tiny swimming polar creature may help forecast polar ecosystem health

A 2025 study found that Antarctic krill, a food chain staple in the Southern Ocean, have an internal biological clock that helps regulate its swimming patterns and helps the tiny shrimp-like animals adapt to daily and seasonal environmental changes. Better understanding of how the clock and light cues interact may help scientists understand how well the species will respond to pronounced climate change in the polar region.

An interactive of the deep sea

Meet siphonophores, breathtaking jellyfish-like organisms

Siphonophores are colonial jelly-like creatures made up of specialized segments that work together as one. They're fairly unknown despite being a significant sea predator. Sink into their strange beauty with this video.

The gene that changes sharks to skates

Sharks and skates (similar to stingrays, without the stinger) look different enough that it's reasonable to assume they aren't related. However, a new study suggests that a microscopic change at the cellular level caused skates to branch off from sharks as they evolved. Scientists believe roughly 285 million years ago, the 3D structure of shark DNA shifted, disrupting the relationships between key genes, and resulting in the flat, symmetrical shape of modern skates.

Chimpanzees are dying from human colds

For some great apes, the threat of human-borne diseases outweighs poaching or habitat loss. This article details the danger of reverse zoonoses, which refers to diseases that spread from humans to animals.

Although ecologists have struggled to identify a species as a keystone—one of outsized importance to its ecosystem—an analysis of 50 years of data and 157 studies identified 230 such species.

'Jaws' creators regret making sharks the monsters

Both Peter Benchley, the author of the original 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg, the director of the blockbuster film based on it, acknowledge that the film's popularity has led to the stigmatization of the mostly harmless creatures.

Korea's "real-life mermaids"

Explore the incredible world of Haenyeo, Korea's female freedivers who dive to depths of up to 60 feet without oxygen tanks. These amazing women have been practicing this ancient tradition for centuries, and yet, their story remains largely unknown.

The best photos of scientists at work in 2025

The winners of Nature's 2025 photo competition capture the essence of scientific fieldwork in diverse and challenging environments. From a biologist battling waves for whale research to ice core drilling in polar night conditions, this gallery details the research being each winning photo.

The purpose of narwhal tusks has mystified researchers for centuries

Nicknamed the "unicorn of the sea," narwhals have no teeth aside from two canines that grow directly forward as tusks. For roughly 85% of females, they stay embedded in the bone. For males, they grow into large, spirally tusks that are full of nerve endings and blood vessels. Scientists today believe that tusks likely formed for sexual selection purposes and eventually evolved to assist in other processes, such as hunting.

Shooting 'Jaws,' Spielberg went over budget and schedule

The shark flick was plagued with technical issues—many of them due to shooting on the open ocean—causing the director to go over budget by more than $4M. Shooting the film took much longer than anticipated, stretching more than 100 days past the anticipated end date.

In Yellowstone National Park, gray wolves act as keystone predators by controlling elk and deer populations, which had previously overgrazed and disrupted river systems that supported many more mammal, fish, and avian species.

Fossilized bite marks suggest some dinosaurs may have engaged in cannibalism

An excavation site near the Colorado-Utah border contained Allosaurus bones with tooth marks of other Allosaurus, which may have occurred in response to a dry season in the area. The Tyrannosaurus and Majungasaurus have also been shown to eat their own.

Underwater nighttime photos capture the ocean's diversity

Self-taught photographer Steven Kovacs explores Palm Beach's ocean after sunset, capturing tiny sea creatures in deep waters. Over eight years, he's dived into Florida's eastern coast, drifting from 0 to 100 feet, photographing rarely seen larval fish. Lacking formal marine biology training, Kovacs collaborates globally to identify species like cusk eels and the female blanket octopus, known for its revealing membrane. Check out his photos here.

Scientists have found that the Great Barrier Reef's microbiome includes an estimated 362,802 distinct viruses and 876 distinct bacterial and archaeal species—584 of which had never been documented before 2026.

Listen to the earliest known recording of a whale song

A recording of a humpback whale was taken by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution near Bermuda in 1949, but forgotten for decades. When first captured, researchers didn't know what animal they were hearing, and therefore didn't catalogue the recording. The well-preserved audio was found by the team's archivist in 2025.

Watch David Attenborough's documentary on bioluminescent creatures, which have been observed using light for hunting, mating, communication, and self-defense, and number in the thousands of species.

Watch wild elephants 'mourn' their dead

Wild elephants in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya visited their dead matriarch's body weeks after her death and displayed behaviors that researchers are hesitant to call "mourning" though they do believe the animals are displaying a specific reaction in response to the death. The video shows elephants using their trunks to touch and explore the carcass while standing in place for extended periods, which is uncommon for the animals.

Watch this octopus win every single Escape Room challenge

Octopuses are famously intelligent, solitary creatures covered in hundreds of chemical-sensing suckers. They're also pretty fascinating pets, and even enjoy playing. The crew at OctoLab put one of its more playful mollusks into four different Escape Room-like cages to see how long it would take for it to escape. Watch this video to see the brilliant, if a bit unsettling, methods the animal uses.

Satellite imagery of the massive seaweed blob in the Atlantic

A belt of sargassum seaweed that stretches from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is the largest on record for March.