Oceans

This week we bring you a species that puts the ‘brittle’ into brittle star: the beautiful and fragile Ophioleuce brevispinum.

The Mediterranean fanworm Sabella spallanzanii is a spectacularly large worm with a characteristic circular whirl of filaments.

We hope this Week’s Critter of the Week will brighten your day, introducing the genus of sea stars called Zoroaster.

With the Kermadec Trench Expedition coming to a close , we thought we would stay on the theme of trenches for a little longer and present to you Scopelocheirus schellenbergi.

Never complain about a bad hair day again! This week’s crab arguably gives more the impression of disbelief than grump.

This week we introduce a beautiful treasure of the deep, Thalassocyon tui a sea snail generally found in northern New Zealand waters.

This week, let us celebrate the closely related genus Corallium in honour of our visiting scientist Tzu Hsuan Tu from the National Taiwan University in Taipei.

This video has been produced to highlight ocean acidification as a potential issue affecting the NZ shellfish aquaculture industry

A NIWA scientist is drilling the teeth of New Zealand sea lions to learn more about why the species is struggling to survive

In late 2013, a group of scientists from NIWA travelled to Antarctica to perform a series of experiments under the sea ice to look at how climate change and ocean acidification could affect this fragile ecosytem.

Acidification of the world’s oceans from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reduces the availability of carbonate required by some marine organisms to build shells and skeletons, and potentially affects their ability to maintain existing structures.

Sightings of the whales, the world's largest animal, are rare and they remain one of the planet's most elusive creatures. They were intensively hunted during the whaling era in the Southern Hemisphere, dramatically reducing their numbers.