Crocodiles are apex predators, and in the wrong place and time, humans are potential prey. There are exceptions, but most of these wonderful and primitive reptiles won’t squander encountering a potential meal. When swimming in any reptile habitat, know who and what you may encounter, or don’t swim at all. The resident American crocodiles at Jardines de la Reina routinely share their waters with snorkelers and divers, but Jen Hayes didn’t feel the same comfort working in Nile crocodile waters in Botswana.
As you drop into water as black as night, thousands of pulsating squid in search of mates suddenly surround you. Mating activity is everywhere as multiple males attack single females. The excited squids’ chromatophores (pigment cells) flash colors reminiscent of a Las Vegas neon sign and put you in the middle of a living, moving light show. The action is so frenetic that animals are in your gear and bounce off every inch of your body.
Where we encounter marine megafauna, we see only a tiny slice of their habitats and lives, which rarely includes feeding. These animals may travel thousands of feet vertically or migrate a few thousand miles horizontally to meet their nutritional needs. Some of them — sperm whales, for example — must do both: descend to depths of up to a mile or more to feast on aggregations of squid and roam across large swaths of the Pacific to avoid depleting their food resources in any one area.
Every night as the sun slips below the horizon, countless aquatic creatures begin migrating up from the deep in what is quite possibly the greatest show on Earth. Seeking nourishment in shallow water, zooplankton must risk a perilous journey upward, avoiding a gauntlet of predators while remaining in the safety of darkness and then returning […]
IT IS DAY FIVE OF THE VOYAGE, and our liveaboard has finally finished the overnight crossing south from the warm waters of Darwin and Wolf islands to Cape Douglas, Isla Fernandina. Although we don’t travel a great distance …
IT IS DAY FIVE OF THE VOYAGE, and our liveaboard has finally finished the overnight crossing south from the warm waters of Darwin and Wolf islands to Cape Douglas, Isla Fernandina. Although we don’t travel a great distance …
I WAS HOOKED THE FIRST TIME I saw a southern sea otter bobbing in the surf off the coast of California’s Big Sur. I didn’t know then that I would be as spellbound by these rare creatures decades later as I was at that very first sighting.
One of the greatest symbols of wildlife in the animal kingdom, penguins endear themselves with their comical antics and wow us by thriving in unbelievably hostile environments.
AN EDIBLE, SLOW-MOVING ANIMAL that lives in clear, shallow waters doesn’t have a high chance of survival these days. Conchs, specifically queen conchs, used to be widespread throughout the Florida Keys and the Caribbean.
SHARING SPACE WITH WILD ANIMALS in nature is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. Maybe you’ve locked eyes with an orangutan in Borneo, or perhaps you’ve watched a clownfish gently tend its eggs on a reef. You may have spied an army of leafcutter ants marching plant clippings back to its colony or peered over the bow of a boat only to catch the gaze of a dolphin.
