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The leatherback turtle is one of our planet’s most distinctive creatures. It can live for decades and grow to weigh up to two tonnes. It is the largest living reptile on Earth and its evolutionary roots reach back more than 100 million years.

“Leatherbacks are living fossils,” says oceanographer Professor Callum Roberts, of York University. “But they are not flourishing. In fact, they are being wiped out at an extraordinary rate, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, where their numbers have declined by 97% over the past three decades. They are now critically endangered there.”

Leatherbacks are suffering for several reasons. They have been hunted for their meat for centuries and the spread of tourist resorts disrupts turtles when they come ashore to lay their eggs on sandy beaches...

A Czech tourist was killed in a shark attack in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, the country’s Ministry of Environment said on Sunday. The 41-year-old man was found dead on a beach in the resort city of Marsa Alam on Friday after being attacked by a shark, City Board Chariman Atef Wagdy said.

“A delegation from the environment ministry and another delegation from the natural reserve of the red sea are currently investigating the incident and trying to locate the shark in the Red Sea,” he said.

The shark is believed to have attacked the man in parts of the sea beyond the coral reef, where Wagdy said people are vulnerable to attack.

The marina, which extends into the coral reefs, has been closed off to beachgoers, Wagdy said.

He added the beach wasn’t evacuated, but beach guards were clo...

It’s your classic movie eureka moment.
Young researcher Sarah-Jeanne Royer set out to measure methane gas coming from biological activity in sea water. Instead, in a “happy accident” she found that the plastic bottles holding the samples were a bigger source of this powerful warming molecule than the bugs in the water.

Now she’s published further details in a study into the potential warming impact of gases seeping from plastic waste. “It was a totally unexpected discovery,” Dr Royer told BBC News.

“Some members of the lab were experimenting with high density polyethylene bottles looking at methane biological production, but the concentrations were much higher than expected.”

“So we realised that the emissions were not just coming from the biology but from the bottle that we were using for...

Just 13% of the world’s oceans remain untouched by the damaging impacts of humanity, the first systematic analysis has revealed. Outside the remotest areas of the Pacific and the poles, virtually no ocean is left harbouring naturally high levels of marine wildlife.

Huge fishing fleets, global shipping and pollution running off the land are combining with climate change to degrade the oceans, the researchers found. Furthermore, just 5% of the remaining ocean wilderness is within existing marine protection areas.

“We were astonished by just how little marine wilderness remains,” says Kendall Jones, at the University of Queensland, Australia, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, who led the new research...

It’s no secret that global warming is bringing dramatic changes to coral reef ecosystems. Scientists have widely believed that habitat loss caused by coral death has the biggest effect on reef fish and invertebrates. Changes caused by warm water are actually faster and more widespread than the effects of habitat loss.Now new research has found that reef fish populations shift in direct response to the temperature itself and that changes caused by warm water are actually faster and more widespread than the effects of habitat loss.

The findings are significant for coral reef protection because a loss of biodiversity, especially of fish that eat harmful algae, could make it harder for reefs to recover from heat waves.

“I was surprised by how dramatic the response was over such a short time...

Rare coral has been found in a deep sea research mission off the west coast of Ireland. Scientists from the Marine Institute in Galway found a black coral previously undocumented in Irish waters. 

The team of marine experts, who spent three weeks at sea, also spotted areas of potential sponge reef, previously only recorded in Canadian waters.

Sizzling temperatures in northern Europe will likely see more people flock to enjoy a dip in the warmer-than-normal water in the coming days.

But, while on the face of it this sounds like a positive development, do higher sea temperatures come at a cost?

Yes, according to Hans-Martin Füssel, a climate change expert from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

He told Euronews that warmer waters in Europe had been linked to more water-borne disease and a worsening of so-called sea dead zones, where increased temperatures mean there is less oxygen for marine life to survive on.

“But the most worrying effects of sea temperature rises are in the tropical and subtropical zones,” said Dr Füssel. “In particular coral reefs, the long-term perspective for them is extremely bad.

“During the 2...

A wave of plastic has hit a beach in the Dominican Republic. This was the scene after a storm on Thursday. The BBC spoke to the organisation who shot the footage of the plastic on the shoreline.

This is unfortunately, what is becoming ‘the new normal’.

The color coral gets its unique coloration from the organisms that live within the coral, forming a symbiotic relationship with it. The organisms that give coral their color are called zooxanthellae, and the coral reefs provide the organisms with a safe place to live.

To better understand the relationship between coral and zooxanthellae, it would help to know some more about both the coral and the zooxanthellae that inhabit the coral.

Fact about coral

Coral, though many people mistake them for plants, are actually marine invertebrates. Coral are of the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria, and they can reproduce either sexually or asexually. The Cnidaria phylum contains other creatures like anemones and jellyfish, any animal which can be referred to as a polyp.

Coral typically coexist in tigh...