Few things can compare to the thrill of seeing a whale at sea. Every year, thousands of nature enthusiasts head out to sea in search of these leviathans, which to many have become the embodiment of nature itself. What’s the attraction? Whales are gigantic and graceful animals exquisitely adapted to the marine environment, and—as we have come to learn over the past half century—behaviorally sophisticated and intelligent. As mammals that left the land more than 50 million years ago, they are distant relatives after all, alien yet somehow familiar and endearing. Continue reading →

William Beebe peers out of the Bathysphere, 1934. WCS Photo Collection

Today we celebrate the historic scientific expeditions that William Beebe undertook in the Bathysphere–including his record-setting dive to the deepest depths ever ventured by a human on August 15, 1934. To read the rest of this post, check out the WCS Photo blog, Wild View.

And come visit the Bathysphere and see some of the Department of Tropical Research artwork this summer at the New York Aquarium! The exhibition Drawn from the Depths, curated by Katherine McLeod, opens today, and the Aquarium is hosting a special NYA@Night tonight.  For more information and tickets, visit NYA@Night.

 Spending months working with historical photos from a specific collection almost creates an illusion that one may have participated in the scenes depicted in these prints.  This notion particularly holds strong when carefully scanning and assigning appropriate metadata to historical photos from scientific research expeditions in beautiful locales filled with wondrous wildlife. Having the privilege to spend my photo archives internship working with many prints from the famous Bathysphere dives conducted by William Beebe and Otis Barton provided me with an imaginary tropical escape while also teaching me invaluable metadata skills. Continue reading →