Alors que vous tombez dans une eau aussi noire que la nuit, des milliers de calmars en quête de partenaires vous entourent soudainement. L'activité nuptiale est omniprésente, plusieurs mâles s'attaquant à des femelles isolées. Les chromatophores (cellules pigmentaires) des calmars excités font clignoter des couleurs qui rappellent les néons de Las Vegas et vous placent au milieu d'un spectacle lumineux vivant et mouvant. L'action est si frénétique que les animaux sont dans votre équipement et rebondissent sur chaque centimètre de votre corps.
Les poissons m’enveloppent complètement. Leurs minuscules corps argentés scintillent dans la pénombre tandis que je flotte, suspendu au centre d’une sphère d’eau claire et tiède. J’ai l’impression d’être à l’intérieur d’une boule à facettes.
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.
Sharks are among the ocean’s oldest survivors. They have cruised through Earth’s seas for more than 450 million years — long before the first trees grew or Saturn formed its rings.
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 […]
The wild, psychedelic colors of reef fish are often what first enraptures divers. Is there an evolutionary explanation for why small, tasty animals adorn themselves in vivid colors instead of camouflaging themselves from hungry predators?
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.
L'un des plus grands symboles de la vie sauvage dans le règne animal, les manchots se font aimer par leurs pitreries et nous impressionnent en s'épanouissant dans des environnements incroyablement hostiles.
