Get ready for Halloween by learning about a spooky species that OGL has in our very own biorepository: the skeleton shrimp!
These fascinating creatures are also known as “ghost shrimp” because of their ability to hide along algae, bryozoans, and hydroids. Some species are even able to change colors to assist in camouflage! They are found in coastal waters worldwide and creepily crawl instead of swimming like most shrimp species.
Happy Halloween from Ocean Genome Legacy!
By: Jay Krithivas, Hannah Appiah-Madson, and Dan Distel The ocean is home to a staggering amount of biodiversity. Among the 33 currently accepted branches on the tree of animal life, 15 are entirely marine, while only one is exclusively terrestrial. Currently,...
We all know that protein is essential to life and that our muscles, vital organs, and enzymes—the tiny molecular machines that drive life’s processes—are all made of protein. In fact, your body contains about 20,000 different proteins, each with its own unique...
Behold the mighty Bobbit worm, striking from the seafloor! Image Credit: Daniel Kwok CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 It’s October again and that means one thing: it’s the time of year for ghosts, goblins, and spooky monsters. Fantastical creatures like these might make the real world...
Did you know that 75–90% of the estimated 1–2 million species living in the world’s ocean remain undiscovered and undescribed? Together, these species constitute the ocean’s taxonomic dark matter—the critical portion of life’s diversity hidden beneath the waves. To...
Staghorn corals (Acropora cervicornis) were once among the most dominant reef-building corals in the Caribbean. However, starting in the mid-1980s, these iconic corals began a steep decline. Due to climate change and a mysterious bacterial plague known as “white band...
Snails are mollusks with distinctive spiral shells. Slugs are snail-like mollusks that have no shells. Easy to tell apart, right? But not so fast. Mollusks of the family Velutinidae are small marine mollusks that have a shell like a snail—but that shell is small and...
Nahant, Massachusetts, January 24, 2023 – The Ocean Genome Legacy Center (OGL) is a new Environmental Partner of 1% for the Planet, an alliance of more than 5,400 business and individual members that give back to support environmental nonprofits. “At OGL, we are...
Last weekend, the United Nations reached an agreement on a landmark treaty aimed to protect life in the high seas! This treaty focuses specifically on resources that are contained in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction. These areas, which are currently largely...
Did you know that there is currently a marine ecosystem off the coast of Alabama that is being powered by an ancient undersea forest!? OGL's Dan Distel gave an amazing talk about how this is possible at Salem State's Darwin Festival in February. If you missed it, you...
Do you want the inside scoop on the Alabama Undersea Forest? On Wednesday, February 15, at 11:00 a.m., Ocean Genome Legacy’s Director, Dan Distel, will be speaking at Salem State University’s annual Darwin Festival, a weeklong event that celebrates the work of Charles...