The Boy in the Submarine

Puffer fish are actually a whole family of fish with somewhere between 120 and 200 species. They are famous for their ability to blow themselves up like a balloon to scare off predators, but that’s not their only defence! Puffer fish are very poisonous and anything that eats them is in serious trouble. Many of them have spines on their body as well. They need all the defences they can get, b...

Bowhead whales are baleen whales who live in the icy Arctic Ocean. Their bow-shaped heads have a hard plate on the top that lets them smash through the ice when they want to come up for air. They are incredibly long lived, with lifespans of around 300-400 years. They are also amazing singers with an incredible range of haunting vocalizations. They are an important filter feed that controls the pop...

The remora is a fish that sticks to the underbelly of bigger creatures. They eat the food that the creature they are riding misses, and helps keep them clean: a perfect picture of symbiosis!

Sea otters are the biggest member of the mustelid family, which includes skunks, weasels, ferrets, stoats, badgers, and minks… but they are also the smallest marine mammal. Sea otters dive underwater for up to 8 minutes at a time to catch crabs, shellfish, and urchins. They are clever tool-users who bang their prey with rocks to crack open their shells for meat. They also wrap their babies i...

Blue Whales are the largest animal that has ever lived! They get to 30.5 meters, and can be as heavy as 181,000kg (400 tons). They have tongues the size of an elephant, hearts as big as a car, and blood vessels a kid could crawl in. For such a big creature their food is very small: they eat krill, plankton, and shrimp: as much as 3,600kg (8000lbs) every day by sucking them into their huge mouths,...

Last year I had to cut season 2 off early because my dad (and producer) got very sick. But he’s better now, and I’m back, with new facts about amazing life under the sea!

Bigfin Reef Squid image CC-BY-SA “ Rhododendrites “ Bigfin Reef Squid is the name of a tiny squid close to Owen’s heart… or so we thought! These sneaky, sparkling squid turned out to be a cryptospecies complex: several different kind of squid that all look so much alike that scientists couldn’t tell them apart until they studied their DNA. That’s okay – ow...

Jellies might look like blobs, but they are very complicated invertebrates that come in hundreds of shapes and can be microscopic or as big as a whale! They can fill almost any ecological niche from prey, to keystone species, to predator! Jellies’ chemistry is a little different from other creatures, and can be mysterious. Some jellyfish seem immune to aging! While most people think of commo...

Crown of Thorns Starfish Image CC-BY Joi Ito The Crown of Thorns Starfish is an very unusual species of Sea-Star. It has a round-flat body with a much bigger central body and stomach than most sea stars, and is symmetrical with an even number of arms, while most sea stars have odd numbers. It is called a “crown of thorns” starfish because of the rings of sharp spikes growing on the top...

Oysters, clams, and mussels are a type of mollusc called a bivalve. Bivalves grow two shells, one on the right side of their body and one on the left. They hold them closed except when they need to open them with a powerful muscle. Oysters grow together, sometimes little ones make a home on a shell of a bigger oyster and grow right off of them. This can lead to hills of oysters called reefs, or bi...

People long thought that the Portuguese Man O’War was long thought to be a strange jellyfish that evolved to float on the surface. It wasn’t until we saw other Siphonophores deep underwater that we figured out it was a type of Siphohophore, too! The Portuguese Man O’War, sometimes called the Man O’War, Box Jellyfish, or Bluebottle Jellyfish is in fact a siphonophore made up...

Kelp grows in huge forests, which cover 0.1% of the ocean floor. That might not sound like a lot, but some Kelp forests are so huge you can see them from space! Each kelp stalk is rooted on the ocean floor, but thanks to the air it traps in its stalk, it floats up, looking like a kind of underwater tree. Some stalks can get as tall as 175 feet (54m) tall. Kelp forests are the home to thousands of...

Cuttlefish are clever tricksters of the ocean. Like their cephalopod cousins the squid and octopus, they can squirt ink, but the tricky cuttlefish can also make a balloon out of mucus and fill it with ink to make a decoy cuttlefish. They can also change their shape and colour to make themselves appear to be rocks, plants, bits of coral, or other objects found nearby. They are very smart and use th...

Siphonophores are big colonies of individual creatures (nectophores) that stick together and share the work of living I the deep sea. Some nectophores swim, some catch food, some digest it, and some do the steering. They are the perfect example of teamwork! There are over 175 kinds of Siphonophores known to humans. The most famous is the Portuguese Man-O’-War, and the most recently discovere...

Coconut Octopus image, CC-BY Christian Gloor The Coconut Octopus is the cleverest species of cephalopod. They collect coconut shells, clam shells, or other objects they can squeeze into and hold closed. They use these tools to hide from predators and to sneak up on prey. They even carry handy hiding places around by using their arms to walk along the floor. We have seen Coconut Octopi watch other...

Mimic Octopus Image, CC-BY Elias Levy The mimic octopus is sneaky! It can change its colour and shape to imitate other sea creatures. They have been seen pretending to be crabs, sea snakes, rays, jawfish, lionfish, anemones, coral, and more! They use this amazing power to sneak up on their favourite food, damselfish! They also have been seen foraging for food from whatever is sitting around the wa...

“We played a sound that we think means ‘Hello’ to the [humpback whale named] Twain… and Twain said ‘Hello’ back!” Owen Today we are updating two of our episodes with follow-up information. Both about how intelligent whales really are, because we are getting closer and closer to talking to them. In 2021 a team of marine biologists including Josie Hubbard ap...

Humpback whales can have beautiful voices, and they can be heard for miles and miles! Owen Humpback Whales have beautiful voices, and are the great musicians of the sea. Each family has their own special song, and each individual whale has a song of its own based on it, just like a personal name! They also make up new songs for both fun and communication. If a whale makes up a particularly catchy...

Orca are really smart! They can be taught to do tricks like sing songs and count, if they are trained well! Owen Orca, sometimes called “Killer Whales” are a really large Dolphin: they are one of the Oceans’ apex predators. They work in packs to take down large prey. Humans have trained them to do all kinds of amazing things, because Orca love to learn. Family is very important t...

Sea Anemones come in thousands of different shapes and colours, just like flowers! Owen Sea Anemones are another invertebrate related to coral. They look kind of like flowers, they are even named after a flower: but their stem is a hard tube, and their petals are tendrils full of stingers. Only a few creatures with special slime can touch a Sea Anemone. Some, like the clown fish even live in the a...