Ocean Conservation Society

Two male bottlenose dolphins attempting to mate with a female during one of our recent research surveys off the coast of Los Angeles, California.

image: ©2026maddalenabearzi/oceanconservationsociety (under NOAA permit)

Learn more about research on bottlenose dolphins here: https://www.oceanconservation.org/research/

OCS photo of the month -
We picked this image of a rare white humpback whale calf and its mother, which won top prize at the 2026 World Nature Photography Awards.

Taken by Jono Allen, the Australian described the day he photographed the duo as “a memory that will live with me forever” and “a truly life-changing encounter.”

SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE EVERY DAY -
Cloacal diving... Hiding in plain sight!

Researchers report for the first time repeated observations of remoras (Echeneidae) cloacal diving behaviour in manta rays.

original paper: Hiding in Plain Sight: Evidence of Echeneidae Cloacal and Gill Diving Behavior in Manta Ray Hosts
Open-access - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.73548

© 2026 the Author(s). Published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. This paper is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) license.

Hiding in Plain Sight: Evidence of Echeneidae Cloacal and Gill Diving Behavior in Manta Ray Hosts Here we document seven observations of Echeneidae cloacal diving behavior in manta rays and one observation of gill attachment behavior. These observations span all three currently described species ...