Deep-sea biologist. Two obsessions: the biodiversity of Earth's largest habitat, and why body size varies across all of life. Science communicator, ocean's weirdest animals daily.https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mrczvusdsc2rWhen a tree washes out to sea and sinks, it becomes an island of food on an otherwise starving seafloor, colonized by clams that eat wood. We dropped 63 of them at 2,000 m to test what drives that ecosystem's function. New paper in The American Naturalist. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/74152623 Jul 2026 14:21 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mrczvusdsc2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mr4sexlgp226I’ve always loved this piece [contains quote post or other embedded content]21 Jul 2026 02:50 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mr4sexlgp226https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mr4ooikf4k23Indian Rock House. The rock is Ozark limestone, built from the remains of animals in a sea that covered Arkansas 350 million years ago. Groundwater ate a cavity into it. People sheltered there. Every layer of that place is somebody’s leftovers. #naturalhistory21 Jul 2026 01:44 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mr4ooikf4k23https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqwylxtduc2fNew paper out in The American Naturalist. We dropped 63 experimental wood falls at 2,000 m in the Gulf of Mexico and let deep-sea wood-boring clams colonize them. 26,324 clams across 12 species later, the answer to what drives ecosystem function was not species richness. It was abundance. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/74152618 Jul 2026 19:25 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqwylxtduc2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqtqx27o6s2yWent to Blanchard Springs Caverns in Arkansas yesterday. The whole cave is built from limestone, built from the shells and skeletons of sea creatures that lived here over 350 million years ago, when Arkansas sat under a shallow sea. Even in an Ozark cave, I cannot escape the ocean.17 Jul 2026 12:30 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqtqx27o6s2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqrc76cwz22kBy all means, let’s gut undergraduate education, research, and staff paychecks because, checks notes, a Iower division football program that loses $29 million a year. That gap gets filled with $16 million meant for student housing and dining. The students pay more fees to subsidize this. https://thecurrentla.com/2026/ul-athletics-is-losing-more-money-than-you-think/16 Jul 2026 13:01 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqrc76cwz22khttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqnhdxkv522x#Arkansas water, familiar to me for a long time. Reenergizing on the White River in Arkansas. Bull Shoals Dam pulls water from 120 feet down in the reservoir, so what comes out stays 48 to 54°F all year. That cold, deep water turned a warm bass river into 100 miles of world-class trout water.15 Jul 2026 00:23 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqnhdxkv522xhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqkqppedbs2gThe appropriately named piglet squid floats mostly upright in the deep, full of ammonia for buoyancy, with a little tuft of tentacles on top and a light organ under each eye. It looks less like a predator and more like something that lost a bet. #MolluscMonday #marinelife13 Jul 2026 22:32 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqkqppedbs2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqkqmhk4qc2gFor #MolluscMonday, a grim one. The new IUCN Red List assessed every mollusc known to live only at hydrothermal vents. Of 201 species, 125 are now threatened with extinction, and the driver is deep-sea mining that has not meaningfully started yet. #marinelife https://iucn.org/press-release/202607/desert-frog-deep-sea-molluscs-remarkable-species-risk-iucn-red-list13 Jul 2026 22:30 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqkqmhk4qc2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mqicdmcxjc2nReminder that the ocean has its own puppies. Seal pups are in the dog-like branch of the carnivore tree, closer kin to your dog than a housecat is. Same eyes, same nonsense, considerably more blubber. #DogsOfBluesky #marinelife https://static.klipy.com/ii/39f2394ae36df6e199be9eb7c9fa1012/d5/fc/AbV5wmGK.gif?hh=498&ww=498&mp4=5sOymwTM6JY4V&webm=foVCMpDjsX07GrAw12 Jul 2026 23:10 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqicdmcxjc2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq7z2lnn5c2nNew paper: octopuses have a unique break in the core of their ribosome that makes protein-building more precise, and it may underpin their big brains. The kicker for me: it's present in shallow octopuses but absent in their deep-sea dumbo octopus cousins. #marinelife https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.25.734654v2.full09 Jul 2026 16:02 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq7z2lnn5c2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq6jkq3wis22Proud to share my grad student Jacob Badcock’s first lead-author paper. It’s a clear, practical guide to using AI imaging to help tackle the marine biodiversity data crisis, without pretending the machines can replace the taxonomists. #marinelife Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.180506209 Jul 2026 01:52 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq6jkq3wis22https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq5e5gu3sk2fAlvin is back. The Navy recertified it to carry three people to 6,500 m, more than 99% of the seafloor. Since 1964 it has made over 5,300 dives. Almost every big deep-sea discovery of the last sixty years has someone's face pressed against one of its portholes. https://oceannews.com/news/science-technology/alvin-recertified-for-deep-sea-dives-to-6500-meters-after-routine-overhaul/08 Jul 2026 14:43 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq5e5gu3sk2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq5dsj3ips2fBonellia viridis is a spoon worm where the female is a fat green blob and the male is microscopic and lives inside her. Sex is decided by luck: larvae that land on a female become male, larvae that land on bare mud become female. Mud determines your sex. #WormWednesday #marinelife08 Jul 2026 14:37 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq5dsj3ips2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq2tjgi6jc2wThe acorn worm genus Yoda is named after exactly who you think, for the big ear-like lips it uses to sweep food off the seafloor. They also leave spiral poo of digested sediment, trails found as fossils before anyone knew what made them. #marinelife https://youtu.be/PUA_trhmP00?si=SPnabOhTkob7Fbio&t=8207 Jul 2026 14:40 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq2tjgi6jc2whttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mq2ssspxks2wPeople imagine marine biology is submarines and sea monsters. Yesterday was a grant with more required paperwork than actual funding amount, followed by hours of university forms and emails. The abyss is down there being fascinating without me. #academia07 Jul 2026 14:27 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq2ssspxks2whttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mpzbgeitns26Carinaria is a sea snail that swims upside down in the open ocean with a tiny shell perched on its back like a party hat several sizes too small. It's a mostly transparent predator in a party hat, and there is no party. There was never going to be a party. #MolluscMonday #marinelife06 Jul 2026 23:43 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpzbgeitns26https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mpw3zoetsk2rHalf of marine fieldwork is knowing the right knot and the other half is pretending you meant to tie the one you ended up with. The trucker’s hitch, though, I’d defend with my life. #fieldwork https://www.netknots.com/rope_knots/truckers-hitch05 Jul 2026 17:29 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpw3zoetsk2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mpvzwwhvs224Xenoturbella is a deep-sea animal that is essentially a flat, sock-shaped blob with no brain, no gut ends, no eyes, and no discernible opinions. Scientists have spent years arguing about where it even belongs on the tree of life. It, meanwhile, is a sock. #marinelife05 Jul 2026 16:51 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpvzwwhvs224https://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mprd44kimc2cHappy early July 4th from the Christmas tree worm, which comes in red, white, and blue, among many other colors. It fans these feathery spirals out to breathe and feed, then yanks them into the coral the instant anything comes near. All the colors, none of the risk-taking. #marinelife03 Jul 2026 19:52 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mprd44kimc2chttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mpqpkrfhsk2dWhy were prehistoric arthropods so huge, sea scorpions over 2 m, dragonflies with hawk-sized wingspans? One leading answer is oxygen. Higher atmospheric oxygen in the Paleozoic may have lifted the ceiling on how big a body running on that system could get. #FossilFriday #marinelife03 Jul 2026 14:02 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpqpkrfhsk2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/drcraigmc.bsky.social/post/3mpqpjvdhi22dThe largest arthropod that ever lived was a sea scorpion (Eurypterids). Jaekelopterus reached about 2.5 meters, longer than a person is tall, hunting the seas 400 million years ago before fish took over as top predators. #FossilFriday #marinelife03 Jul 2026 14:02 +0000at://did:plc:3le6war5fza7fe27pvrumcms/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpqpjvdhi22d