Did you know the headless chicken monster isn't even a chicken?
Nor a monster! 🐙
Meet the pink see-through fantasia, a deep-sea swimming sea cucumber with one of the ocean's best nicknames.
It swims just above the seafloor in the deep ocean, drifting through near-total darkness. Most sea cucumbers stay on the bottom. This one hovers, in water too cold and pressurized for most life to survive.
When threatened, it glows, using bioluminescence to confuse predators where no other defense would work.
And while it looks like something out of a nightmare, it plays a quietbut important role. It recycles nutrients from seafloor sediments, which helps keep the deep sea ecosystems in balance..
Strange, slow, and still largely unknown. Exactly what makes an encounter like this so remarkable.
Most people think storytelling is fluff.
But it’s how ideas actually land. Mark Dalio (@mdalio ), the founder and co-CEO of non-profit ocean exploration initiative @OceanX , explains why it matters more than most people think.
What’s a story that has stuck with you?
Interviewer: Tara Sobti
Videographer: Siven Ho
Gaffer: Sunny Yip
Video Editor: Siven Ho
#TatlerLeadership
🌊 🚢 Hop aboard the @oceanx OceanXplorer with Scripps Oceanography PhD student Jessica Zhong (@vulturious )! She recently participated in the OceanX Young Explorers Program, which brought together 10 American and 10 Chinese early-career ocean scientists, students, and instructors in pursuit of their shared goal to better understand the ocean and each other.
Here at Scripps, Jessica’s research interests span the evolution and functional morphology of large pelagic predators and deep-sea fishes, with a focus on extraordinary adaptations like endothermy, vision, and bioluminescence. Her work in the Fish Evolution Lab combines cutting-edge genomics with 2D and 3D morphological analysis to better understand how extreme ocean species evolve convergent traits. She is currently studying the evolutionary relationships of sea catfishes across Australia and New Guinea.
🐟 Swim over to the link in our bio to dive deeper into Fish Evolution Lab research.
How do you study thousands of years of ocean history?
Start with a 40-centimeter tube.
This is a push core. It's deployed by our remotely operated vehicle to collect sediment from the deep seafloor.
The tube is pushed straight down into the seabed. It preserves the layers exactly as they formed over time.
Each layer represents a different point in time. By studying these sediment cores, scientists can reconstruct past climate conditions, track nutrient cycling, detect pollution and microplastics, and understand biological activity in the deep sea.
In some cases, just a few centimeters of sediment can record hundreds to thousands of years of history.
What looks like a simple tube is actually a time capsule. What we learn from it helps us understand how the ocean has changed, and how it might change next.
The best breakthroughs often come disguised as surprises.
Mark Dalio (@mdalio ) didn’t plan for 20 orcas to show up mid-dive, but that unplanned moment became one of his media and marine science organisation OceanX’s most remarkable stories.
His lesson: uncertainty isn’t the enemy of great work. It’s often the source of it. So roll with the opportunities because the ones you didn’t see coming are sometimes the most valuable.
What’s the best thing that’s happened to you completely by surprise? Tell us below.
And hit the link in bio to read our full interview with Mark and his father Ray on their work to study and protect the oceans.
Interviewer: Tara Sobti
Videographer: Siven Ho
Gaffer: Sunny Yip
Video Editor: Siven Ho
#TatlerLeadership
Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough, whose work has shaped how the world sees, understands, and values the ocean.
In 2018, Sir David joined us aboard Alucia for a dive to the Great Barrier Reef. To descend with someone who has spent a lifetime bringing the natural world to audiences everywhere was a rare moment, not just for the access it offered, but for what it represented. A shared commitment to making the unseen visible, and to building a deeper public understanding of why the ocean matters.
It has been an honor and a privilege to share an expedition with Sir David Attenborough, from venturing beneath the surface to revealing the hidden worlds that connect us all. His influence continues to shape how the ocean is communicated, understood, and valued.
Here’s to 100 years of discovery, and to the stories still waiting to be told.
Two subs. One descending to explore. One descending to document.
850 meters down in the Sulawesi Sea, pitch black surrounds both vehicles. You're watching Neptune, OceanX's science sub, as it approaches the seafloor. The footage is captured from Nadir, our media sub, descending right alongside it.
Neptune is built for science. It carries researchers, sampling tools, and sensors into environments most vessels can't reach. At this depth, researchers can study the seafloor up close, collect specimens, and document species in real time.
Nadir is built to show the work. High-resolution cameras capture what Neptune does, how it moves, and what it finds, turning deep-sea research into something the world can see.
Together, these subs make it possible to explore and share what lives in places we've barely begun to understand.
What if you could hear the ocean, and understand it differently because of it?
As an Artist-in-Residence aboard the OceanXplorer, Matthew McCorkle works with sound to translate ocean research into experiences people can move through and listen to.
Using sound recording, processing, and immersive XR, he builds environments where scientific data becomes something people can engage with directly. Not just observing what researchers find, but interacting with it in a way that is easier to follow and remember.
During his time at sea, watching the horizon stretch endlessly, he described feeling small within a much larger system. A shift that reframes the ocean from something distant to something we are part of.
By connecting research with sound, immersive media, and artificial intelligence, OceanX is developing ways to make ocean science more accessible. Extending what happens on the ship into experiences that more people can understand and use.
Meet Andrew Craig, expedition leader for the Timor-Leste mission.
14 days at sea. 5,151 square kilometers surveyed. Over 60 blue whale sightings.
In Timor-Leste, this expedition brought together scientists, pilots, and engineers across air, surface, and deep sea, using multiple technologies to understand a place we’re only beginning to see clearly.
From tracking blue whales with drones to documenting life along the seafloor below, each effort added another layer to a much larger picture of biodiversity in these waters.
“We exceeded all of our expectations. We’ve left this country very happy scientists and very happy locals—and hoping to be back sometime very soon.”
Every sample contributes to understanding biodiversity in waters that remain critically understudied.
Last October, scientists from five countries mapped over 17,000 square kilometers of seafloor in just 24-days. Global ocean cooperation in action.
Much of the ocean lies beyond national borders. These are the high seas, shared waters that belong to all of us.
OceanX and the @nus_singapore came together for Singapore’s first major deep-sea mission since the UN High Seas Treaty was ratified, exploring Monsoon Rise in the eastern Indian Ocean, one of the least-studied regions on the planet.
There, the team investigated two seamounts, discovered previously uncharted features, and documented ecosystems rarely seen.
The expedition put a global agreement into practice. The data and specimens collected will be among the first contributions to a shared, open body of knowledge from the high seas, accessible to all countries.
Progress at this scale only happens together.
One ocean. One planet. One shared responsibility.
Who will shape the future of ocean science?
In Indonesia, OceanX Education opened OceanXplorer to students, educators, and researchers through portside tours, university lectures, and hands-on training experiences.
More than 450 students stepped aboard the ship to see the technology behind deep-sea exploration, while young scientists gained exposure to real-world research methods, from biodiversity surveys to ocean mapping.
Protecting the ocean depends on more than discovery. It's also building the knowledge, skills, and leadership needed to carry that work forward.
