Earlier this semester, Dr. Craig McClain, of NESCENT and Deep Sea News fame, launched the Sizing Ocean Giants project. His crack team of exceptional undergraduates will be conducting “outresearch” — a research adventure in which outreach is an integrated component of their research, rather than a secondary tag-along. They are 10 articles deep into the semester and the results have been fantastic. In no particular order, we’ve already learned that:
- Leatherback turtles eat the equivalent of 16 cucumbers per day.
- Mola molas are the heaviest bony fish in the world.
- Great White Sharks have more in common with Blackberry phones than you might think.
- Finding Nemo’s lesson that fish are friends, not food, really struck a chord with some students.
- Elephant Seals know how to work what they got.
- The ocean sunfish has the ocean’s derpiest face.
- Some animals are photosynthetic.
- Whales have… nubbly?… throats.
- Whale sharks are ripe for satire.
And, of course: