Anglerfish and comedy always seemed like a natural pairing. But it took internet humorist Ze Frank to bring the two together in one delicious dish. The natural history documentary parody series “True Facts About …” by Frank has become a minor youtube sensation. I’d seen one of his works before “True Facts About Land Snails” [...]

Editor’s Note: Expedition Blue Planet, led by Jacques Cousteau’s granddaughter Alexandra Cousteau, is traveling 14,500 miles of road over 138 days to investigate and film some of North America’s most pressing water-use and management stories. Expedition members will file dispatchs from the field for Scientific American until the expedition concludes on November 12 in Washington, [...]

Editor’s Note: William Gilly, a professor of cell and developmental biology and marine and organismal biology at Stanford University, is traveling with a group of students on board the Don José in the Sea of Cortez. They will monitor and track Humboldt squid and sperm whales in their watery habitats. This is the group’s seventh [...]

Diseases, poachers, smartphones, sewage and animal psychology are in the news this weekend. Temper Tantrum: Evidence of canine distemper has been found in Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) in Indonesia, according to a recent report from BBC News. Distemper has previously been found in Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in Russia, where it proved to [...]

The last three males of an all-but-extinct fish species would really, really, really like to meet a female. Once upon a time the Mangarahara cichlid (Ptychochromis insolitus) lived in a single habitat: a river in Madagascar from which the species gets its name. That river has now been dammed and the habitat has dried up. [...]

One of the world’s rarest fish species just got a lot rarer. The latest twice-annual count of tiny Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) at their sole habitat in Nevada has revealed just 35 of the critically endangered fish remain, down from 75 this past fall. This is the lowest count since the species was federally [...]

First the good news: The world’s only population of the critically endangered Moapa dace (Moapa coriacea), a tiny fish endemic to the hot springs along a small stretch of Nevada’s Muddy River, has boomed this year. After a strange and still unexplained die-off in 2007 lowered the species’ population from 1,200 to 473 fish, its [...]

When I last wrote about Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) this past December, the species was in pretty dire straits. A contagious cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) had, at that point, wiped out at least 70 percent of devils in the wild, forcing scientists to resort to captive breeding, a sperm bank and [...]

Look at a hagfish and you’ll probably think it’s pretty icky. Don’t look at any hagfish and you’ll probably never think about them at all. But these oft-ignored creatures play an essential role in the ocean ecosystem, and you might want to think about them before they’re gone. Last week, the International Union for Conservation [...]

A rare fish named after a J.R.R. Tolkien character is at risk of extinction if a dam is built on the species’s one-and-only river habitat in New Zealand, a government report concluded last week. The 15-centimeter fish, Gollum galaxias (full Latin name, Galaxias gollumoides, also known as the “Smeagol galaxiid”), can only be found on [...]

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill this year and subsequent cleanup efforts could drive the world’s smallest sea horse into extinction, warns the Zoological Society of London and its marine conservation organization Project Seahorse.  The tiny dwarf sea horse (Hippocampus zosterae), which grows to a maximum length of 2.5 centimeters, can be found only in [...]

More than a fifth of Africa’s freshwater species are threatened with extinction, and their disappearance could threaten livelihoods across the continent, according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The study, conducted for the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, assessed 5,167 African freshwater species over a five-year period. [...]

How much will it cost to protect an endangered fish in South Carolina? The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) wants local utility Santee Cooper to make several changes to its dams on Marion and Moultrie lakes, which would help endangered shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) to pass through the dams and breed. But Santee Cooper says [...]

Watching videos of fish feeding frenzies is a very emotional experience for me. You know the videos I’m talking about (personal favorites here, 0:55 in, and here). They feature a swirling, glittering mass of fish that seems to dance and flit as a single entity while being torn apart by three or four types of [...]

  "What’s more," snapped the Lorax. (His dander was up.) "Let me say a few words about Gluppity-Glupp. Your machine chugs on, day and night without stop making Gluppity-Glupp. Also Schloppity-Schlopp. And what do you do with this leftover goo?… I’ll show you. You dirty old Once-ler man, you! "You’re glumping the pond where the [...]

When we know someone is watching us, we behave differently. This ‘audience effect’ is something I have written about previously. However, a new study has found a type of audience effect never before found outside humans. Just to recap, the ‘audience effect’ is any change in our behaviour caused by someone else watching. This evidently [...]

We all act a bit differently when we know someone’s watching. When your boss walks into a room, perhaps you’re more likely to do a good job, (or if you’re anything like me, more likely to screw up). Maybe there’s a joke that you know is hilarious with one group of friends, but you don’t [...]

With a juicy insect dinner perched on a leaf above the water, what is a hungry little archer fish down below to do? Knock it down with a super-powered, super-precise jet of water that packs six times the power the fish could generate with its own muscles, according to new findings published online October 24 [...]

The ancient ocean was a frightening place. But the emergence of the armored placoderm fish would have made it even more terrifying. These fish were no great whites—some weren’t much bigger than a goldfish. But they were some of the first vertebrates to have jaws, and new research shows that they were probably the first [...]

This week’s look at the ScienceDebate answers provided by Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama focuses on their replies to a question about the health of our oceans and coastlines. Two areas in particular—declining fisheries and pollution—were highlighted for special consideration. Of course, the oceans also play a major role in driving weather systems [...]

The promise of a nice dinner might not always win over a woman, but for some male fish, a tasty-looking lure seems to get the girl pretty reliably. The trick is to make sure the offering resembles the local cuisine and then they can reel in the ladies hook, line and sinker. Swordtail charachin (Corynopoma [...]

Deep in the Silurian seas, some 420 million years ago, a strange structure had just emerged in the bodies of many new vertebrates. Some fish began developing a defined upper and lower jaw that allowed them to devour large and hard-shelled organisms. Today more than 99 percent of vertebrates have these handy eating apparati. But [...]

In the animal kingdom it pays to look more dangerous and less tasty. It also helps if harmful species resemble one another so that predators might "learn" more easily to avoid both. A new example of this form of mimicry has been discovered among catfish that live in the Amazonian basin, where a school of [...]

Ever wish you had a secret code that you could use to communicate with a select few? Researchers have found that one little breed of fish actually has one. The Ambon damselfish (Pomacentrus amboinensis) can see detailed ultraviolet (UV) patterns on their fellow fishes—and detect the lack of these lines in other similar species, according [...]

The gargantuan plankton-eating whales of today—such as the humpback whale and the blue whale–have long been thought to be the evolutionary masters of their filter-feeding technique. New research, published online February 18 in two papers in Science, however, shows that millions of years before these massive mammals evolved, huge fish fruitfully employed the same approach—and [...]

Florida stone crabs (Menippe mercenaria) are known to diners for their sweet, meaty claws. And octopuses also seem to relish these delicacies. Reports are coming out of Florida that the stone crab fishery is way down this year—and many think local common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris) are to blame. The crabs are caught in traps, most [...]

The diminutive blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) looks like a sweet, possibly even fantastical creature. Often measuring less than 20 centimeters long and covered with dozens of bright blue rings, it spends most of its time hiding out in shells or rocks near the beach. But don’t be fooled—this little cephalopod is trouble. One small nip [...]

Octopuses are clever, reclusive, dexterous, strong and slippery as heck—especially those belonging to the very largest species: the giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini). So how are researchers to catch and track them? Certainly not with traditional nets and tags, which the octopuses can (respectively) squeeze out of and rip off. Instead, try enlisting the help [...]

Mimic octopuses (Thaumoctopus mimicus) have one-upped their well-camouflaged cousins by actively impersonating other sea creatures—such as venomous sea snakes and lionfish—by changing their body shape and movement. But they have now been one-upped by a tiny fish that mimics them (or at least takes advantage of their complex patterning and movement to better camouflage itself). [...]

In 2010, people across the globe munched their way through 128 million tons of seafood. That’s according to the latest data coming out of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This hefty supply of fish equals around 41 pounds per person each year, and is taking its toll on the health of the oceans [...]

Getting a second term is pretty good, but getting your own fish is arguably pretty good too because Obamafish. Say it out loud, it’s great. Five new species of colourful, freshwater fish called darters have been discovered in river drainages in eastern North America and named after four Presidents and a Vice. Darters are the [...]

Who says genitals have to be between your legs? A new species of fish has literally turned the genital game on its head and is quietly running with it in the murky Meking River. Discovered in 2009 by zoologist Koichi Shibukawa from the Nagao Natural Environment Foundation in Tokyo, Japan, and described in a recent [...]

By Jason G. Goldman and Matt Soniak Humans have a complicated relationship with our non-human cousins. Some animals we invite into our homes, and treat as members of our families. Indeed, in November of this year singer Fiona Apple made headlines when she announced that she would cancel the South American segment of her tour [...]

Earlier this summer, evolutionary biologist, wildlife photographer, and (most importantly) my friend Neil Losin asked if I wanted to drive down to Long Beach with him to check out the grunion run, and try to get some decent photos of it. We went, and it was awesome, so I tweeted about it. You guys. You [...]

The Quiet Ensemble sees music everywhere in nature. Quintetto promo from Quiet ensemble on Vimeo. “Quintetto” is an installation based on the study of casual movement of objects or living creatures used as input for the production of sounds. The basic concept is to reveal what we call “invisible concerts” of everyday life. The vertical [...]

Evolution has a knack for confronting us with strange and unexpected questions. One of them echoed through the halls of the Collections Centre of the National Museum of Scotland, not too long ago: “Why does a fish need a sacrum!?” Lauren Sallan was peering through her microscope, studying a fossil specimen of Tarrasius, when she [...]

Like most evolutionary tales, this one could have started on the Galapagos Islands. Instead we find ourselves in an ancient sea, near the end of the Devonian, 360 million years ago. A mass extinction has struck life underwater. The armoured placoderms, once an abundant class of fishes, have gone extinct. Other groups of fishes have [...]