The ocean is one of the world’s biggest secrets. A colorful world lies under its undulating blue surface, home to about 200,000 distinct and oddly attractive creatures. The ocean spans about 71% of the Earth’s surface, but humans have only investigated about 20% of it, leading experts to think that there are likely up to two million undiscovered species hiding in the sea’s uncharted depths. Although there is much that is unknown about the ocean, one thing is certain: it is breathtakingly beautiful. There’s no need to go to the aquarium because we’ve got some amazing underwater photos right here.
- A camera-shy clownfish hides in a blue sea anemone, which is where predators usually hide.
2. A beam of sunlight illuminates a shoal of fish swimming in a sea cave.
3. Off the coast of South Australia, a leafy sea dragon swims along the shallow seabed. They aren’t known to have any predators since their foliage camouflage makes them an unappealing prey.
4. The blue-ringed octopus is a tiny octopus that creeps over the seafloor along the Philippines’ coast.
5. A shoal of bluestripe snapper fish swims in a straight line.
6. Soft corals that grow on cannibal rock are pink in hue and resemble underwater trees.
7. On the island of Maui, Hawaii, neon fish cluster near a coral rock.
8. A lion’s mane jellyfish, also known as a hair jelly (for obvious reasons), lives in the icy waters off Alaska’s coast.
9. The sperm whale is the world’s biggest toothed predator, as this close-up shows.
10. Tropical fish swim along the surface of the water, which is perfectly clear and blue. The Maldives, Bahamas, and Greece are thought to have some of the world’s bluest seawater.
11. A deep-sea light bulb is the bougainvillia superciliaris.
12. A school of fish makes room for a young reef shark.
13. A sea turtle swims through a coral reef that is alive and well. Coral reefs, believe it or not, are the world’s biggest biological structures.
14. The bottlenose dolphin may leap 15 to 30 feet above the water’s surface. A pair of bottlenose dolphins grab some air during sunset in the Caribbean sea, as seen here.
15. Because the vividly colored Orange Cup Coral (of the Dendrophylliidae family) does not require sunshine to survive, it may be found in the deep sea or caves.
16. Pelagia noctiluca, a semi-translucent jellyfish, floats near the Mediterranean Sea’s surface.
