Visualizing the 75 largest underwater animals

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.

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 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.

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

Take an interactive dive and see the animals that populate the oceans, from coral near the surface to shrimp-like organisms near the seafloor.

Infographic illustrates the diverse and fragile Amazon ecosystems

This infographic helps readers better understand the vast rivers, forests, plants, and animals that call the Amazon rainforest home. Home to the largest collection of plant and animal species in the world, the Amazon rainforest has 16 thousand known...

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

An interactive of the deep sea

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.

A collection of fascinating facts about the planet and its creatures

You may have already heard that cheetahs are the fastest animals on land, but did you know that Savannah elephants are the strongest? This page on the World Wildlife Fund's UK website features a diverse range of articles on mammals, underwater creatures, birds, reptiles, insects, and landscapes. Discover captivating information about Earth and the creatures you share it with.

What we know about the mysterious colossal squid

The colossal squid, the world's largest invertebrate, remained hidden from human discovery until nearly a century ago. Explore the world of the enormous and mysterious creature, including its features, habitat, and scientific significance. You can even plan a visit to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and marvel at a real-life display.

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.

Explore the deepest parts of the ocean

The deeps of the Earth's oceans are some of the most extreme environments on the planet. Take a trip 36,000 feet to the deepest parts of the sea in this informative, 10-minute animated video.

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.

Listen to recordings of different fish species

Scientists have captured and curated this collection of species-specific recordings, helping us gain a deeper understanding of underwater ecosystems. Uncover their sounds, which include a lot of thumps, burps, and grunts.

View a breakdown of the identified species on Earth, led by about one million insect species, while mammals such as humans make up one of the smallest groups.

See how each of the more than 2 million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

A simple pictorial explanation of ocean geography

Visualizing ocean geographical features, such as a coastal zone, continental shelf and abyssal plain. This article from the US Geological Survey also provides several links to diverse ocean facts.

Why 75% of ocean animals glow

About 75% of ocean creatures can make their own light. It's called bioluminescence—and it all comes down to a special chemical reaction happening inside their bodies.

Explore a database of more than 220,000 shipwrecks, the largest compilation to date.

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.

38 thought-provoking facts about the ocean

Coral produces its own sunscreen, tsunamis move at 500 miles per hour, one of the loudest sounds ever recorded came from an ice quake, and other interesting facts collected from sources such as National Geographic and NASA.

A map of every object in our solar system

The infographic from 2020 illustrates the complexity of our solar system, mapping over 18,000 objects including asteroids, comets, planets, and moons. Created by biologist Eleanor Lutz using data from NASA, it shows the non-linear distribution of objects due to the sun's gravitational pull. Objects nearer to the sun are more numerous, forming tighter orbits, while those farther out are fewer and more widely spaced.

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.

Visual deep dive into the collapse of insects

The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate. Explore this visual interactive on the issue from Reuters Graphics.

Aerial footage of five killer whales hunting great white sharks

Killer whales near South Africa have been making a meal of one of the ocean’s apex predators. The unique footage served as the basis of a new scientific paper analyzing the orca behavior.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

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.

The world's largest coral, as seen from space

The world’s largest individual coral colony—measuring over 100 feet wide and 100 feet long—was discovered in the Solomon Islands. This coral is so large it can be seen from space, and is estimated to be between 300 and 500 years old. The coral's size and health provide hope amidst a global coral bleaching crisis, wherein three-quarters of coral reefs have experienced significant bleaching in recent decades. See the photos from space and learn more here.

Visualizing the enormity of plastic waste compared to global landmarks

The team at Reuters Graphics visualizes the world’s addiction to plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. The illustrations included in this visual explainer show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over longer periods of time and how large the piles would be compared to famous landmarks.

Take a 3D underwater trip near the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, comprising more than 900 islands and almost 3,000 individual reefs. This video lets you tag along with divers as they explore the reef off the southern coast of Lady Elliot Island in full 3D (use the direction buttons in the upper left of the video, or your keypad).

A look at how fish less than two inches long climb up 50-foot waterfalls

Shellears use tiny hooks on their front pectoral fins to grip rock like Velcro and take many pauses to recover energy between bursts of movement. Their pectoral girdle—an arch of bone—supports the muscle system needed for the roughly ten-hour climb.

View a collection of glass sculptures of corals threatened by fishing and deep-sea mining.

The history of infographics: cave art to interactive visuals

When did humans first create infographics? This article and related infographics detail how artistic data representations have evolved alongside humans and other hominins. The roots of infographics can be traced back to cave paintings, such as...

The world's largest species of marine algae is giant kelp, which can grow as much as two feet per day from depths of about 100 feet up to the ocean surface.

The Atlantic Ocean is home to the world's largest waterfall—the Denmark Strait cataract—which is more than three times the height of the largest land-based waterfall.

Divers capture a blanket octopus unveiling her billowing membrane

In a short clip captured during a blackwater night dive in the Lembeh Strait, a blanket octopus unfolds and displays a colorful web multiple times its original size. The aquatic animal’s iridescent body and tentacles glow against the nighttime...

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.

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.

What a tiny marine worm can tell us about our brains

Meet the amphioxus, a small eel-like animal that has a lot to teach us about brain evolution. The genetic roots of our brains can be seen in these unusual creatures. This three-minute educational video focuses on the evolutionary history of the human brain through these odd little critters with a 500-million-year-old history.

Explore a visualization of the scale of objects across the universe, from an astronaut and planets to stars and galaxy clusters, in this interactive adventure.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as of 2025, there are over 18,000 endangered animal species worldwide, with the share of fish, insects, mollusks, and reptiles increasing since 2007.

Five charts that changed the world

Data visualization helps us understand the world, providing a powerful way to communicate complicated information in a quick and efficient way. There are many different ways to create graphs, and these five examples—the pie chart, geographic dot...

The South American lungfish has the largest known animal genome, with 91 billion base pairs—a set of genetic instructions about 30 times larger than a human's.

Visualizing changes in ocean temperatures between 2016 and 2020

How much does the temperature of the sea change in a given year? This visualization helps illustrate the changes by showing sea surface temperature data from January 2016 through March 2020. Sea surface temperature, which refers to water temperature at the sea's surface, plays a significant role in climate and weather.

The entire observable universe in one map

Scientists believe we’ve only discovered about 5% of the universe. Here’s a map of what we’ve found so far, visualized using a log scale.

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.

View a collection of images and videos of coral reefs from around the world.

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.

Although an estimated 99.999% of the deep ocean has not been explored, techniques such as sonar have been used to identify the deepest known point in each of Earth's five oceans.