Some free-swimming sharks have been observed detecting underwater sounds and identifying the source's location up to 74 meters (243 feet) away.

Bats and dolphins produce sound to reflect off surfaces and create a mental image of their surroundings. Owls' faces are dish-shaped to help funnel sounds to their ears, including that of mice moving along leaves or snow. Pinnipeds, such as seals and walruses, hear in both air and water.

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.

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.

If a fish screams as it falls down a cascading waterfall accelerating to ridiculous speeds, will his fish friends above hear him scream? This analogy, odd as it is, has become an essential tool in the astrophysicists kit for learning how enigmatic black holes operate. Lab experiments mirroring the so-called sonic black hole have achieved insights for their cosmic counterparts. Read how it works in this brief piece.

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.

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.

Female sea turtles use this ability to migrate hundreds of kilometers across the ocean from their feeding grounds to the beaches where they were born to lay their eggs. Researchers have found that these turtles can reach these beaches despite ending up significantly off course as they detour away from predators or toward foraging territories.

In "Black Hole Hunter," users try to listen for gravitational wave signals from black holes in four sample data files that include substantial background noise. With each level, learn more about black holes while being faced with ever-quieter signals.

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.

In a study of bats exploring a new area, specific sets of "head direction cells" were seen becoming active based on bats' orientation when moving, and this activity became more coordinated over time. Researchers suspect, like humans, bats and other animals establish this sense of direction based on movement relative to known points of interest.

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.

Analysis from 2019 found that about half of the 23 Neanderthal skulls scientists examined seemed to have the bony growths in the inner ear, signifying they had surfer's ear. Those growths suggest our ancient relatives, dating back to between perhaps 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, were potentially hunting fish, mollusks, or other marine resources in chilly waters.

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.

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.

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 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.

As part of a scientific bet, neurobiology researchers dragged a chocolate bar across the grass and sought to see if a human could track it—she could. This led to a more in-depth experiment on human olfactory capabilities and behavior when other senses were blocked.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that tornado-producing storms generate specific sounds below the range of human hearing, much like the infrasonic signals produced by earthquakes and avalanches. Although difficult to distinguish from wind noise, scientists hope to build systems that use these signals to improve tornado forecasting.

Octopus suction cups are filled with modified sensory receptors that can bind with a greater variety of materials and transport a wider array of information, such as flavor, from tactile stimuli. These structures allow the animal to search for food as it crawls the ocean floor.

Fossil evidence and CT scans suggest that many dinosaurs produced low-frequency sounds using resonating crests, closed-mouth vocalizations, or organs similar to those of birds and crocodiles. Larger sounds would not have been helpful for sneakily hunting prey.

The term swimmer's ear is a bit of a misnomer since other factors including scratches to your ear from Q tips, trapped perspiration inside the ear when you sweat, and living in tropical climates can elevate the risk of contracting this outer ear infection. But swimming poses the greatest risk: widely cited research has found that swimming elevates the risk of contracting this infection fivefold.

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,...

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.

Scientists studying groups of giant danios swimming in turbulent waters found that the fish used up to 79% less energy than they did when swimming individually in the same conditions. The same fish were found to use the same amount of energy in turbulent and calm water when in schools.

Paleontologists analyzed the fossilized eye and ear structures of 16 theropods, finding that some had owl-like hearing and huge pupils. These characteristics are consistent with modern-day nocturnal species, including nightjars and geckos.

Steven Spielberg realized the key to unlocking the terror of the shark in "Jaws" would be by obscuring it, remembering an important lesson from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Spielberg recalled, “It’s what we don’t see that is truly frightening."

Neuroscience suggests that connections responsible for motion made during embryonic brain development—such as those connecting hearing and movement pathways that allow reactive motion when started—are duplicated and connected to the larynx in some animals. This allows some mammals and song-learning birds to speak, provided they have the necessary physiological structures.

Sonar works by sending thousands of sound pulses per second towards the seafloor, capturing the strength and timing of the returning echo. This data can accurately reveal depth, seafloor texture, and the presence of fish habitats to millimeter resolutions.

The seahorse-shaped structure transfers short-term memories to long-term storage during sleep. It is located in the temporal lobes, above each ear, and aids in spatial navigation and remembering directions.