Tag Archives: Sea

A study has identified a new species of plesiosaur named Plesionectes longicollum that is thought to have swam the oceans during the Toarcian period, nearly 183 million years ago. Excavated from a quarry in Germany in 1978, the specimen has been stored in collections at the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History for almost 50 years. The new research investigates the anatomy …

Melissa McClure’s husband asked if it was a midlife crisis. No she told him: “I’m wide awake to the possibility of what my life can be and it doesn’t include you.” McClure wasn’t sleeping well. She had hot flashes. Her husband’s loud chewing sent her into a rage. His negative attitude bothered her and she no longer felt appreciated as …

A sunflower sea star – credit, Ed Bierman CC 2.0. For years, a wasting disease has been turning sea stars to goo off the California coast. Scientists now finally know the cause, and are beginning to fight back. Whether it has over 20 arms like the sunflower sea star, or just 5, billions of Pacific sea stars were being wiped …

Rogue waves have captivated the attention of both seafarers and scientists for decades. These are giant, isolated waves that appear suddenly in the open ocean. These puzzling giants are brief, typically lasting less than a minute before disappearing. They can reach heights of 65 feet (20 meters) or greater and often more than twice the height of surrounding waves. Once …

A study published in PeerJ by paleontologists Sven Sachs and Daniel Madzia has reclassified a nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton found in 1978 in Holzmaden, Germany, as a new genus and species. Named Plesionectes longicollum, this Early Jurassic marine reptile had an extraordinarily long neck and unique skeletal features that challenge previous ideas about plesiosaur evolution during the Toarcian stage, about …

QUICK FACTS Name: Headless chicken monster (Enypniastes eximia) Where it lives: The depths of the world’s oceans What it eats: Marine snow (organic matter that floats from the surface down to the seabed) If you happened upon this bizarre creature in the ocean, you could be forgiven for thinking someone had flung a chicken carcass into the sea and it …

A fascinating study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals a groundbreaking discovery about the feeding behavior of sea spiders in methane-rich ecosystems off the coast of Southern California. Marine biologist Shana Goffredi and her team have uncovered a new survival strategy that enables these tiny, translucent arachnids, identified as Sericosura, to thrive in one of …

A dull stretch of silty seafloor off Southern California hides a surprise that would fit on a pencil eraser. Here, three new sea spiders in the genus Sericosura have learned to live on the greenhouse gas methane, thanks to a cloak of bacteria that carpets their limbs. The work comes from marine biologist Shana Goffredi at Occidental College, whose team …

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say they have at last solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars off the Pacific coast of North America in a decade-long epidemic. Sea stars – often known as starfish – typically have five arms and some species sport up to 24 arms. They range in color from solid orange to tapestries of orange, purple, …

A “most remarkable” monster’s fossilized remains from Jurassic Germany is a never-before-seen species, a new study reports. The marine reptile, which swam in prehistoric oceans about 183 million years ago, has been given the name Plesionectes longicollum, which translates to “long-necked near-swimmer.” P. longicollum is a type of plesiosauroid, an extinct group of long-necked, carnivorous marine reptiles that swam in …