Scientists have recently discovered the fossil remains of a prehistoric sperm whale that they believe ate other whales. To accompany their article on Leviathan melvillei, Discovery News has also published the most awesome scientific illustration of all time. While contemporary sperm whales have teeth only in their lower jaw and are specialized to eat giant squid, these prehistoric whales had giant (up to 14 inches) teeth and were apparently designed to take big bites of big prey.

Now that I have a working computer again, I’m going to post some underwater videos!

Here are some cool things that Jacques Cousteau made:

This is amazing footage of deep sea squid from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, captured by deep sea remote operated vehicles (via):

And here’s some amazing underwater footage from Antarctica (via):

Antarctica – Below Zero from Alex.Be. on Vimeo.

Recently on the Internet…

Echinoblog tells us the tale of how fossil sun stars can tell us more than you expect about plate tectonics and evolution.

Thriving Oceans breaks down the theory behind how climate change may impact the breeding capability of sea turtles.

The Scuba Geek helps you visualize the size of the BP oil spill.

Caribbean Med Student helps you find cool stuff do do on Saint Martin, including some nice snorkeling tips.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture featured an awesome National Geographic photo of some scientists doing Extreme Shallow Snorkeling in a Tennessee creek in search of a 2-inch catfish. Bonus points: the fish is called the smoky madtom.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture is a generally fantastic photo blog, and today today they posted some really striking photos of oil-soaked sea birds.

I think it is interesting that, as far as oil spills are concerned, birds really seem to capture human emotion more than almost anything else. I think partially it is because birds are relatively intelligent and vocal and we can recognize their suffering. Part of it is probably that they are perhaps more visible than many of the creatures that are undoubtedly dying out in the ocean.

I think it also comes from the impact of seeing these sleek, soaring animals grounded and stuck in sludge. They’re essentially the tribe of dinosaurs that took to the skies, and in these photos, they’re transformed into gruesome apparitions stuck in ancient muck.

Circus of the Spineless is a monthly round-up of interesting invertebrate blog posts, and the latest one is up at Deep Sea News. Deep Sea News also has some of the most informative updates on the gulf oil spill, and many other things that are worth checking out.

Today I read about an extreme shallow environment that I hadn’t heard of before: anchialine ponds. These are ponds that are near, but separate from, the ocean. They vary from freshwater to saltier than the ocean and are typically fed by undeground springs or other groundwater. In Hawaii, there are about 700 known anchialine ponds, mostly in lava depressions, and they are one of the most endangered local ecosystems there. One of the primary residents is a small, herbivorous shrimp that is called ‘opae ‘ula, which is endemic to these ponds. Larger shrimp and some fish also live in the ponds, as do various algae and plants.

In addition to habitat destruction, anchialine ponds are threatened by use in aquaculture or landscaping. For more info and photos, check out this post on anchialine ponds at Thriving Oceans.

Time for a quick round-up of the latest sea news from the internet:

• Vampire squid are threatened by human activity. Also true of practically everything else in the ocean.
• Will blobfish invade? This seems to be basically a puff piece written so they could publish the picture of a really ugly fish.
• A giant prehistoric fish was discovered to be a filter feeder. This is perhaps not so surprising because most of the biggest creatures in the ocean today, such as whale sharks, manta rays and many whales, also feed this way.
• Japan plans to reject any ban on bluefish tuna harvesting. Why? Because they eat about 80% of the world’s catch and apparently they’d rather continue doing so no matter how endangered it becomes.

(Hat tip to Nadia for alerting me to most of these news stories.)

Things Magazine was kind enough to post some survival manuals from the 50s, including one on Sea Survival. Key areas include having a plan of action in your dignhy, obtaining water from icebergs and fish juices, and remembering to not drink urine. You can also learn how to improvise fish hooks and learn to identify fish you shouldn’t eat – “good flesh should be firm and not slimy.”

When you spend 400 hours underwater in near-freezing temperatures, you just might get some amazing photos. Norbert Wu spent 12 years documenting the underwater life and habitats in Antarctica over the course of more than 1,000 dives.