Ocean Mysteries Revealed

The multi-year Census of Marine Life aims to document what used to live in the ocean, what lives there now and what will live in the ocean in the future. This week, the scientists with the Census are sharing some of what they've discovered.

It's pretty amazing stuff.

For some time now, we've been telling the story about white shark migrations to the "White Shark Cafe" between Mexico and Hawaii -- research conducted by the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) team, led by our colleagues at Stanford University. It's research in which our white shark project team has played a part.

Other scientists in the 82-nation effort have discovered that all the world's deep-sea octopuses may be descendants of a single species that originated near Antarctica and began spreading its tentacles (so to speak) 30 million years ago.

Many more details will emerge this week during the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity in Valencia, Spain. And the Census itself has another two years to go.

Who knows what else they'll discover before they're done? Meanwhile, you can learn more about TOPP's good work, and white sharks in general.