When most of us picture the ocean, we imagine turquoise waves, colorful reefs, and shoals of darting fish. But that’s only the surface. Venture deeper, far below the last reach of sunlight, and you ...

Rachael has a degree in Zoology from the University of Southampton, and specializes in animal behavior, evolution, palaeontology, and the environment. Rachael has a degree in Zoology from the ...

Far beneath the waves, animals evolve in strange and surprising ways, often becoming much larger than their shallow-water ...

Image source, Jialing Cai/The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census/Schmidt Ocean Institute A carnivorous "death-ball" sponge ...

The vast array of organisms in the deep sea remains a mystery to humans. Now, marine biologists can add one more puzzle to the list. A collection of odd materials was discovered nearly four miles ...

CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. DNA analysis has established that creatures captured during a voyage to the mid-Atlantic are members of the Torquaratoridae; a recently discovered ...

The sea covers roughly 70% of our planet, yet we know surprisingly little about its depths. Vast, mysterious, and often unfathomable, it hides countless shipwrecks, scary creatures, and other secrets ...

The knotty sea spider, Pycnogonum litorale, is not actually a spider, but it does represent a significant early branch in the genetic family tree that includes spiders, as well as scorpions, ticks and ...

Meet the “ghost fish,” a phantom of the abyss. Here’s how we found the first ever proof of its existence just a few years ago. The deep sea is a part of the world that very few humans get the chance ...

A mysterious deep-sea creature has just helped scientists solve a long-standing evolutionary puzzle. The vampire squid—an ...

A hoodwinker sunfish, or Mola tecta, can weigh as much as 4,400 pounds and can grow up to nine feet long Charlotte Phillipp is a Weekend Writer-Reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since ...