Fish News

July 16, 2025

Top Headlines

This Shark Can Change Color — Thanks to Hidden Nano Mirrors in Its Skin

July 11, 2025 — Blue sharks possess a secret hidden in their skin: a sophisticated arrangement of microscopic crystals and pigments that create their brilliant blue appearance — and may allow them to change color. Scientists have discovered that these ...

No Training Needed: How Humans Instinctively Read Nature’s Signals

July 10, 2025 — People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists ...

Tiny Creatures, Massive Impact: How Zooplankton Store 65 Million Tonnes of Carbon Annually

June 27, 2025 — Zooplankton like copepods aren’t just fish food—they’re carbon-hauling powerhouses. By diving deep into the ocean each winter, they’re secretly stashing 65 million tonnes of carbon far below ...

Toxic Tides: Centuries-Old Mercury Is Flooding the Arctic Food Chain

June 13, 2025 — Despite falling global mercury emissions, mercury levels in Arctic wildlife continue to rise. A new study reveals that ocean currents are delivering legacy mercury pollution from distant regions like China to the Arctic, where it accumulates in ...

Cleaner Fish: Tiny Healers or Hidden Spreaders in Coral Reef Ecosystems?

June 12, 2025 — Reef "beauty salons" staffed by tiny cleaner fish aren t just for parasite removal they may also shape the microbial life of the entire ecosystem. A fascinating new study shows these bustling fish stations influence which microbes move around the ...

Satellite Tracking of 12,000 Marine Animals Reveals Ocean Giants Are in Trouble

June 7, 2025 — A massive global collaboration has tracked over 12,000 marine animals from whales to turtles to create one of the most detailed movement maps of ocean giants ever assembled. The project, MegaMove, ...

New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo

May 30, 2025 — A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every ...

Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs

May 29, 2025 — Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new article. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds ...

Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs

May 28, 2025 — This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin populations which have exploded due to overfishing in the ...

Discovery Offers New Insights Into Skin Healing in Salmon

May 27, 2025 — Scientists have discovered cells in the skin of Atlantic salmon that offer new insights into how wounds heal, tissues regenerate, and cellular transitions support long-term skin ...

The Ocean Seems to Be Getting Darker

May 27, 2025 — Scientists, who have spent more than a decade examining the impact of artificial light at night on the world's coasts and oceans, have shown that more than one-fifth of the global ocean -- an area spanning more than 75 million sq km -- has been the ...

Megalodon: The Broad Diet of the Megatooth Shark

May 26, 2025 — Contrary to widespread assumptions, the largest shark that ever lived -- Otodus megalodon -- fed on marine creatures at various levels of the food pyramid and not just the top. Scientists analyzed the zinc content of a large sample of fossilized ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:18pm EDT

Brighter, Bolder, Hotter: Why Female Guppies Can't Resist Orange

July 10, 2025 — Male guppies that glow with more orange aren’t just fashion-forward — they’re also significantly more sexually active. A UBC study reveals that brighter coloration is linked to virility and is ...

Hovering Fish Burn Twice the Energy—study Shocks Scientists

July 8, 2025 — Hovering fish aren’t loafing—they burn twice resting energy to make micro-fin tweaks that counteract a natural tendency to tip, and body shape dictates just how costly the pause is. The discovery ...

Sex Swap in Seconds: The Fish That Takes Charge and Changes Gender

June 27, 2025 — Remove the top male spotty fish and, within minutes, the next-in-line female morphs into the tank s new tyrant charging and nipping rivals while her body quietly begins a weeks-long transition to ...

Rainbow Reefs Revealed: The Secret 112-Million-Year Saga of Glowing Fish

June 17, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered that fish biofluorescence a captivating ability to glow in vivid colors has ancient roots stretching back over 100 million years. This trait evolved independently in reef ...

Natural Algal Communities Can Inhibit Aquaculture Pathogens

May 24, 2025 — Antimicrobial resistance is a growing issue in aquaculture. Researchers discovered that combinations of bacteria from live-feed microalgae are capable of inhibiting ...

Why Europe's Fisheries Management Needs a Rethink

May 23, 2025 — Every year, total allowable catches (TACs) and fishing quotas are set across Europe through a multi-step process -- and yet many fish stocks in EU waters remain overfished. A new analysis reveals ...

New Study Reveals How Competition Between Algae Is Transforming the Gulf of Maine

May 22, 2025 — New research shows how rapidly proliferating turf algae are waging 'chemical warfare' to inhibit the recovery of kelp forests along Maine's warming ...

Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat

May 22, 2025 — New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75 per ...

'Sharkitecture:' A Nanoscale Look Inside a Blacktip Shark's Skeleton

May 20, 2025 — Using synchrotron X-ray nanotomography with detailed 3D imaging and in-situ mechanical testing, researchers are peering inside shark skeletons at the nanoscale, revealing a microscopic ...

Surprise Baby Whale Sightings Reveal There's Still Much to Learn About Humpbacks

May 20, 2025 — Humpback whales are not always born in tropical waters, new research has shown -- challenging long-held assumptions about their breeding and ...

Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves

May 16, 2025 — A new study reveals that heat-tolerant symbiotic algae may be essential to saving elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) -- a foundational species in Caribbean reef ecosystems -- from the devastating ...

Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!

May 15, 2025 — A new study shows that seagrass ecosystems along the northern half of Florida's Gulf Coast have remained relatively healthy and undisturbed for the last several thousand ...

An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times

May 14, 2025 — With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it's too ...

Invasive Salmon, Clams and Seaweed Are Next Threats to Biodiversity in Britain

May 12, 2025 — Pink salmon, Purple Asian clams, marine invertebrates that form spaghetti-like colonies and a nematode worm that causes extensive deaths of trees are among the new entries in experts' watchlist ...

New Ancient Fish Species Earliest Known Salmon Ancestor

May 9, 2025 — The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar. Alaska's fresh waters 73 million years ago ...

Internal Clocks Determine the Ups and Downs of Antarctic Krill

May 9, 2025 — Antarctic krill do not only react to external environmental influences such as light or food. They also use their internal clock to adapt to the extreme conditions of the polar ...

Scottish Shrimp Study Illuminates New Potential for Bait-Less Fishing

May 8, 2025 — Fishing pots fitted with LED lights catch significantly more shrimp and fish, new research ...

Fewer Parasites in the Indian River Lagoon Signal Big Ecosystem Problems

May 7, 2025 — Parasites are crucial indicators of ecosystem health, and their absence can signal trouble. Once pristine, Florida's Indian River Lagoon (IRL) now faces pollution and algal blooms that have ...

Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience

May 5, 2025 — A new study links grazing halo patterns in coral reefs, as well as those in other patchy habitats, to the spatial patterns of the shelter habitat itself. The researchers found that grazing halos are ...

How Are They Biting? High Speed Video Reveals Unexpected Jaw Movements in Reef Fish

May 5, 2025 — Some reef fish have the unexpected ability to move their jaws from side to side, biologists have discovered. This ability -- which is rare among vertebrate animals -- allows these fish to feed ...

Intensifying Farmland Can Sometimes Degrade Biodiversity More Than Expansion

May 1, 2025 — The intensification of existing farmland can sometimes be more harmful to local biodiversity than expanding the area covered by agricultural land, finds a new ...

Juvenile Salmon Roam Between Salt and Fresh Water While Exploring Coast and Rivers, New Research Finds

Apr. 30, 2025 — The well-known salmon life cycle has long been described as going only one way at a time. Juvenile salmon hatch and swim down rivers to the ocean, where they grow and mature before returning to the ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's ...

Want to Understand Grasslands? Look at the Bigger Picture

Apr. 28, 2025 — New research asks how local and regional factors determine the makeup of plant species in grasslands. Researchers from a restoration ecology lab are attempting to solve a longstanding question in ...

Chip-Shop Fish Among Key Seabed Engineers

Apr. 28, 2025 — Many of the fish we eat play a key role in maintaining the seabed -- and therefore our climate, new research ...

'Cryosphere Meltdown' Will Impact Arctic Marine Carbon Cycles and Ecosystems, New Study Warns

Apr. 25, 2025 — A new study has found worrying signs that climate change may be undermining the capacity of Arctic fjords to serve as effective carbon sinks. The findings suggest that the capacity of polar oceans to ...

New and Surprising Traction Trait in Sculpin Fish

Apr. 23, 2025 — Researchers discovered tiny features on sculpins' fins which may enable them to cling firmly in harsh underwater ...

Paying Fishers to Release Endangered Catches Can Aid Conservation, but Only If Done Right

Apr. 23, 2025 — A new study has revealed that an incentive program increased live releases of endangered species caught as bycatch. However, unexpectedly, the overall positive impact was reduced by some vessels ...

Tackling Parasite Devastating Fish Farmers Around the World

Apr. 22, 2025 — At the heart of the Amazon researchers are investigating a mysterious parasite which is devastating fish farms around the ...

First Confirmed Footage of a Colossal Squid -- And It's a Baby!

Apr. 16, 2025 — An international team of scientists and crew on board Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too) was the first to film the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural ...