REVIEW: Renée Fleming soars in ‘Voice of Nature' in May Festival finale
Renée Fleming's performance, accompanied by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the baton of guest conductor Robert Moody, was titled "Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene." The piece inclued a nature film by the National Geographic Society, which was projected on a screen above the orchestra.
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Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Yahoo
We've never seen this rare squid alive in the wild—until now
Reporting in this article is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex under the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. It was late on Christmas Eve and the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean's Weddell Sea weren't cooperating. The scientists and crew onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's ship R.V. Falkor (too), were planning to take the vessel's remotely operated vehicle to the Powell Basin—an unexplored abyssal plain, which plummets to around 9,800 feet deep. The expedition was led by the National Geographic Society as part of their Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions and leveraged the institute's ocean exploration tools. 'It was our mission critical,' says Manuel Novillo, a postdoctoral researcher at Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal who was aboard the ship. But the sea ice was so treacherous, Novillo and his fellow researchers had to postpone the launch. 'The ice blocks were moving so fast, it would put all the ships in danger, so we had to rearrange everything,' Novillo says. Reluctantly, they chose a new site at the outer edge of the Powell Basin for the next day. Yet those setbacks and that new location would soon lead to a world first—on Christmas Day, Novillo and his team witnessed a squid that had never been seen alive: Gonatus antarcticus, an elusive cephalopod found only in the frigid waters around Antarctica. As the expedition's remote vehicle, SuBastian, slowly dropped 7,000 feet through the ocean's inky twilight zone toward the seabed on Christmas morning, Novillo watched a live video feed streaming into the ship's mission control room. Suddenly, he spotted a shadow a few feet away. Intrigued, he asked the pilot to get closer. And 'voila, it appeared,' he says. There, in front of the rover, was a three-foot-long squid, which released a small cloud of greenish ink—perhaps startled by the vehicle. 'What are the odds?' Novillo says. 'We were not supposed to be there and not at that precise moment.' The team followed the squid for two or three minutes while it hung gently in the water. They used lasers to get an accurate measurement of its size, and the pilot turned down the lights so the team could get an idea of how this enigmatic animal lives in its natural environment. Then, when the squid decided it had had enough, it shot away from the ROV and disappeared from view. The team aboard the ship shared the footage with Kat Bolstad, head of the Auckland University of Technology's Lab for Cephalopod Ecology and Systematics—fondly known as the AUT Squid Squad. 'My very favorite thing is when someone sends me a clip and says, 'who's this squid?'' she says. Bolstad identified the three-foot-long squid as Gonatus antarcticus—the Antarctic Gonate squid. 'This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first live footage of this animal worldwide,' she says. Before now, the species was only known from carcasses in fishing nets or when the squids' beaks were found in the stomach of fished marine animals. To confirm the ID, Bolstad was looking for a specific feature: 'On the ends of the two long tentacles, the presence of a single, very large hook,' she says. Sure enough, there it was on video. 'It's not consistently visible,' she says, 'but it is definitely there.' Finally visible alive and in its natural habitat, scientists could examine the squid's unique characteristics and form theories about its habits. 'The impressive tentacle hooks are probably used for grasping and subduing prey during ambush predation,' wrote Alex Hayward, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter in England, in an email. Hayward was not involved in the expedition. Yet we still don't know much about the Antarctic squid. 'Daily life is probably a mixture of an active predatory lifestyle, trying to catch fish to eat, whilst avoiding voracious predators,' says Hayward. Deep-sea squids have good eyesight and usually avoid the lights of a research vessel, making the chance encounter all the more remarkable. 'We want to see them, but they probably don't want to see us most of the time,' she says. The squid had scratches on its arms and fresh-looking sucker marks on its mantle. 'Maybe there's been some kind of recent predation attempt that this squid has managed to survive,' says Bolstad, although it's unclear exactly which species was involved in the epic battle. Hayward wonders if the culprit was a juvenile colossal squid, which has an overlapping range and depth. (See the first ever video showing the colossal squid alive and in its natural habitat.) The researchers couldn't confirm the squid's sex from the footage but, if it's female, 'she's nearly twice as big as some other females that have completed their lifecycle,' Bolstad says. Towards the end of their lives, squid in this family become pale and their tissues break down. 'They're getting kind of puffy,' she says. 'Kind of ragged.' But this squid seemed to be 'in pretty good shape,' says Bolstad. 'The coloration is still really strong.' Could this be a male, suggesting that older males don't deteriorate like females do? Or is the animal we know as Gonatus antarcticus made up of more than one species? The experts don't yet know. This exciting discovery highlights how much there is to learn about the ocean, particularly in the relatively unexplored polar regions. 'In the deep sea, there's always a good chance you're seeing something for the first time,' says Bolstad. 'The potential for discoveries and exploration is pretty much limitless.'
National Geographic
10-06-2025
- National Geographic
We've never seen this rare squid alive in the wild—until now
Reporting in this article is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex under the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. It was late on Christmas Eve and the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean's Weddell Sea weren't cooperating. The scientists and crew onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's ship R.V. Falkor (too), were planning to take the vessel's remotely operated vehicle to the Powell Basin—an unexplored abyssal plain, which plummets to around 9,800 feet deep. The expedition was led by the National Geographic Society as part of their Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions and leveraged the institute's ocean exploration tools. 'It was our mission critical,' says Manuel Novillo, a postdoctoral researcher at Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal who was aboard the ship. But the sea ice was so treacherous, Novillo and his fellow researchers had to postpone the launch. 'The ice blocks were moving so fast, it would put all the ships in danger, so we had to rearrange everything,' Novillo says. Reluctantly, they chose a new site at the outer edge of the Powell Basin for the next day. Yet those setbacks and that new location would soon lead to a world first—on Christmas Day, Novillo and his team witnessed a squid that had never been seen alive: Gonatus antarcticus, an elusive cephalopod found only in the frigid waters around Antarctica. Antarctic Squid 2 The team of scientists aboard the research vessel were able to observe key characteristics of this squid, such as its size and signs of engaging in a conflict. Video By Video by ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute As the expedition's remote vehicle, SuBastian, slowly dropped 7,000 feet through the ocean's inky twilight zone toward the seabed on Christmas morning, Novillo watched a live video feed streaming into the ship's mission control room. with the NAT GEO KIDS or LITTLE KIDS subscription. Summer Sale: Annual subscriptions starting at just $24! Suddenly, he spotted a shadow a few feet away. Intrigued, he asked the pilot to get closer. And 'voila, it appeared,' he says. There, in front of the rover, was a three-foot-long squid, which released a small cloud of greenish ink—perhaps startled by the vehicle. 'What are the odds?' Novillo says. 'We were not supposed to be there and not at that precise moment.' The team followed the squid for two or three minutes while it hung gently in the water. They used lasers to get an accurate measurement of its size, and the pilot turned down the lights so the team could get an idea of how this enigmatic animal lives in its natural environment. Then, when the squid decided it had had enough, it shot away from the ROV and disappeared from view. Identifying Gonatus antarcticus The team aboard the ship shared the footage with Kat Bolstad, head of the Auckland University of Technology's Lab for Cephalopod Ecology and Systematics—fondly known as the AUT Squid Squad. 'My very favorite thing is when someone sends me a clip and says, 'who's this squid?'' she says. Bolstad identified the three-foot-long squid as Gonatus antarcticus—the Antarctic Gonate squid. 'This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first live footage of this animal worldwide,' she says. Before now, the species was only known from carcasses in fishing nets or when the squids' beaks were found in the stomach of fished marine animals. To confirm the ID, Bolstad was looking for a specific feature: 'On the ends of the two long tentacles, the presence of a single, very large hook,' she says. Sure enough, there it was on video. 'It's not consistently visible,' she says, 'but it is definitely there.' Finally visible alive and in its natural habitat, scientists could examine the squid's unique characteristics and form theories about its habits. 'The impressive tentacle hooks are probably used for grasping and subduing prey during ambush predation,' wrote Alex Hayward, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter in England, in an email. Hayward was not involved in the expedition. Yet we still don't know much about the Antarctic squid. 'Daily life is probably a mixture of an active predatory lifestyle, trying to catch fish to eat, whilst avoiding voracious predators,' says Hayward. Deep-sea squids have good eyesight and usually avoid the lights of a research vessel, making the chance encounter all the more remarkable. 'We want to see them, but they probably don't want to see us most of the time,' she says. The curious life of a deep sea squid The squid had scratches on its arms and fresh-looking sucker marks on its mantle. 'Maybe there's been some kind of recent predation attempt that this squid has managed to survive,' says Bolstad, although it's unclear exactly which species was involved in the epic battle. Hayward wonders if the culprit was a juvenile colossal squid, which has an overlapping range and depth. (See the first ever video showing the colossal squid alive and in its natural habitat.) The researchers couldn't confirm the squid's sex from the footage but, if it's female, 'she's nearly twice as big as some other females that have completed their lifecycle,' Bolstad says. Towards the end of their lives, squid in this family become pale and their tissues break down. 'They're getting kind of puffy,' she says. 'Kind of ragged.' But this squid seemed to be 'in pretty good shape,' says Bolstad. 'The coloration is still really strong.' Could this be a male, suggesting that older males don't deteriorate like females do? Or is the animal we know as Gonatus antarcticus made up of more than one species? The experts don't yet know. This exciting discovery highlights how much there is to learn about the ocean, particularly in the relatively unexplored polar regions. 'In the deep sea, there's always a good chance you're seeing something for the first time,' says Bolstad. 'The potential for discoveries and exploration is pretty much limitless.'
National Geographic
03-06-2025
- National Geographic
How a supertiny crustacean makes life work in the Southern Ocean
Reporting in this article is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex under the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. One night last December, National Geographic Explorer Kim Bernard was stirring her Earl Grey tea in the galley of a research ship off the coast of Antarctica, preparing for a long night of observing a remotely operated vehicle as it surveyed the seafloor. When the marine ecologist looked up to a monitor showing a live video feed sent by the ROV from a depth of more than 3,000 feet in the Southern Ocean's murky waters, something caught her attention. 'I see this tiny little thing come in on the right-hand side of the screen and dart out,' she said. To the other scientists aboard, it probably looked like organic debris wafting down. But Bernard, 46, has been studying krill for 15 years and knows how the shrimplike crustaceans twirl in the water column and bolt backward when startled. That familiar movement sent her running down two flights of stairs to the ship's control room. Collected specimens from the seafloor. When she arrived, she saw the action on the seafloor being broadcast on a large bank of monitors, and she spotted a handful of individual krill spread out on a hydrothermal vent, a fissure in the ocean crust where hot magma and seawater meet and create a mineral-rich environment that attracts a host of organisms. For Bernard, a professor of biological oceanography at Oregon State University, finding krill here represented a momentous discovery. 'I kind of lost my mind,' she recalled. It was the first time the animal had been observed on a vent. (Why penguin poop makes krill swim for their lives.) Antarctic krill are a keystone species that allows everything else in the Southern Ocean to flourish. If Bernard could learn more about their habitat on the seafloor, her research could inform our understanding of virtually every predator on this hard-to-reach continent, from emperor penguins to blue whales. Any new behavior from such a foundational animal has the potential to affect the entire food chain above it. That night in the control room, aboard the research vessel from Schmidt Ocean Institute, Bernard soon realized all the krill were females carrying eggs. The species usually releases eggs higher in the water column. What makes it worth the risk to travel so far at that stage in reproduction? Were they feeding on the bacteria covering the vent? She asked the operator to use the ROV's special suction arm and gather a few of the crustaceans. This was also a first. Bernard isn't aware of any researchers who have collected specimens at that depth. She has since sent stomach and tissue samples out for analysis. (Scientists discover creatures living beneath the bottom of the deep sea.) Aboard the expedition vessel Bernard had access to tools like video cameras and a remotely operated vehicle to observe krill in the Southern Ocean. Bernard's work on the expedition, which was supported by the National Geographic Society and Rolex Perpetual Planet Expeditions, is part of an ambitious project that's sending nearly two dozen scientists to all five oceans. Their efforts will be the subject of a series of stories in National Geographic as they search for new insights—like, say, the presence of krill in underexplored places. In Antarctica, the species is more than just a vital part of the food chain. Krill are also a carbon sink, eating phytoplankton that have absorbed CO2 and then excreting pellets to the seafloor, where it can take thousands of years for the absorbed carbon to resurface. However, there are new pressures on the species from both humans and climate change. Krill are increasingly harvested as aquaculture feed, and the animals' oil is highly sought after as a dietary supplement. Meanwhile, as sea ice continues to melt, larval krill are losing an important habitat where they can hide from predators, find food, and develop into adults. Bernard hopes her ongoing research and future insights from this discovery will protect this tiny animal that so much life relies on. 'There's a thriving mass of life down there,' she said, 'and all of it depends on krill.' The ROV was able to collect specimens from the seafloor that were later dried for analysis. A version of this story appears in the July 2025 issue of National Geographic magazine.
