Magnificent microscopic creatures of the seas
The Tara oceans expedition, conducted from 2009 to 2013 in all the world's oceans, crisscrossed the globe to collect 35,000 ocean plankton specimens, from single-cell algae to fish larvae. The findings were detailed in several papers in the journal Science. The book "Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World" shows these tiny organisms in incredible up-close photographs.
Photo: This small medusa collected in the Mediterranean Sea is a close relative of Turritopsis thought to be an immortal jellyfish.
Ocean Expedition
Plankton collected in the Atlantic Ocean with a 0.1 mm mesh net. This is a mixture of single cell protists - diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians and foraminiferans.
Ocean Expedition
Common zooplanktonic creatures are displayed together here. From left to right: a tiny crustacean copepod, a spider crab larva, an amphipod, a baby squid, a Phronima amphipod, and an Atlanta pteropod mollusc.
Ocean Expedition
The Tara Oceans expedition collected these small zooplanktonic animals in the Indian Ocean: a molluscan pteropod on the right, and 2 crustacean copepods. On the left is a fragment of orange paint from Tara's hull.
Ocean Expedition
Three different pteropod molluscs. The two in the back have fragile calcareous shells. They are natural prey for the third species (in front) which does not have a shell.
Ocean Expedition
Radiolarians are protists - unicellular creatures - that often live in symbiosis with algae, visible here as tiny ocre-colored dots. On the top left is a colonial radiolarian.
Ocean Expedition
Plankton collected in the Pacific Ocean with a 0.1 mm mesh net. Here we see a mixture of single cell protists - diatoms, dinoflagellates, and foraminiferans - surrrounding a colony of radiolarians in the center.
Ocean Expedition
Plankton collected in the Pacific Ocean with a 0.1 mm mesh net. This is a mixture of multicellular organisms - small zooplanktonic animals, larvae and single cell protists (diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians).
Ocean Expedition
A hyperiid amphipod of the Phronima genus. These parasitoid crustaceans eat salps and use the empty gelatinous husks as protective shells.
Ocean Expedition
Phytoplankton from the Indian Ocean, Tara Oceans Expedition Station 52.
Ocean Expedition
This Liriope medusa caught and ate a large part of a juvenile fish.
Ocean Expedition
Called the minnows of the deep, this cyclothone was among the tens of thousands of microscopic species caught on the Tara oceans expedition from 2009 to 2013.
Ocean Expedition
Microzooplankton: the tintinnid ciliate Rhabdonellopsis longicaulis and a diatom from Station 64 in the Indian Ocean of the Tara Oceans Expedition.
Ocean Expedition
One of the marine organisms captured during an around-the-world expedition that lasted from 2009 to 2013 and captured 35,000 specimens.
Ocean Expedition
A plankton species, phronima amphipod, captured as part of global expedition that surveyed microscopic life in the world's oceans.