What is hidden in the sand, around a wreck or among the algae? Dive.Explo360 articles build on your underwater observations to help you understand marine habitats, species’ ways of life and their relationships within ecosystems.
Develop your knowledge of marine life while diving: discover the features of different environments, learn to observe their inhabitants and connect your discoveries with the marine species guides and the dive videos. These readings accompany divers and anyone curious about underwater life, before or after exploring.
Your marine region: Mediterranean. Choose a marine region, then search for a subject or filter articles by category and topic. Each publication shows its availability and access conditions.
Region labels show where the topic applies. Articles that cover several seas may use tropical examples, even in the Mediterranean catalogue.
35 articles
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Environment
Look above the green leaves and you might spot a fish. Look between them and you could find a tiny prawn. Posidonia is a flowering plant that grows under the Mediterranean Sea. Its leaves grow from stems called rhizomes.…
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Way of life · Behaviour
Look at the shells, pebbles and bits of crab outside this crack. Has an octopus been eating here? It might still be hiding in the dark. Let’s see what we can find out from the things it may have left behind.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the rest
AvailableFree accessArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Environment
After a storm, you might find long brown ribbons on the beach. They’re leaves from Posidonia, a plant with roots and stems that grows underwater. Some leaves stay in the meadow. Follow the others to see what happens when…
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Biotope · Environment
A lionfish peeks out from under a rock off Cyprus. It opens its wide striped fins and moves towards a smaller fish. Its ancestors came from the Red Sea. How did they get from one sea to the other?
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Environment
The water feels warm at the start of a dive. Go down a few metres and it suddenly feels cold on your face. You’ve just crossed a thermocline, a layer where the water gets colder quickly as you go deeper.
AvailableFree access
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Natural history
Imagine swimming beside an underwater cliff covered in purple fans. They look like plants, but they’re made up of tiny animals. They stay fixed to the rock, so how do they get their dinner?
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
A sea cucumber creeps along the sand. Tiny tentacles pop grains into its mouth, and a trail of little sandy rolls lies behind it. Pick a grain and imagine taking the trip through its gut.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the rest
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Behaviour
A moray peeks out from a crack in the reef. Its mouth opens, closes, then opens again. All those teeth come into view every time it takes a breath.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Behaviour
A shark can lie on the sand with its eyes wide open. It’s still breathing. Could it be asleep?
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Anatomy · Science
Imagine a little fish with an eye on each side. By the time it settles on the sand, both eyes look upwards. Follow the sole and see how other animals change as they grow.
AvailableFree access
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Behaviour
As the light fades, two little fish come out from the reef. Soon they’ll swim upwards side by side. What does swimming together help them do?
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
A mussel snaps its shell shut. A sea star settles over it. All it needs is a tiny gap. Elsewhere, a fish uses rushing water to catch a shrimp, and a sea cucumber finds food between grains of sand.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
A dead fish can sink all the way to the seabed. Small animals may gather to feed, and other fish may come to catch them. Where does the dead fish go once there’s nothing left to see?
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
A little reef fish darts towards a much bigger one. What makes it give chase? Watch where the fish lives and what it guards.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
A scorpionfish can be hard to spot among the rocks. An anemone leaves its tentacles out in the open. Look closely at both animals to see how they catch food and protect themselves.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
Imagine a fish sleeping with its eyes open. How could you tell? From a reef to a research tank, several animals give us clues.
AvailableFree accessMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
Imagine a little fish spotting what looks like a worm. It swims closer. The wriggling thing is a lure, and it belongs to a frogfish hiding on the seabed.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Natural history
Imagine an egg smaller than a grain of rice drifting in a current. When it hatches, a tiny larva must find food and, in some species, reach a shelter. Follow its journey and discover how other parents protect their…
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Ecology · Natural history
As the sun sets, some reef fish slip into hiding. Others come out to feed. Farther out at sea, tiny animals are already swimming up towards the surface.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Anatomy · Natural history
Picture an octopus slipping between rocks to escape a fish. If it loses part of an arm and survives, the arm can grow back. A sea star can also regrow an arm. A sea cucumber can even rebuild its intestine.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Ecology · Natural history
Picture a wave breaking after dark. A blue line runs along it and fades. Tiny living things in the water make those flashes. Deeper down, some fish and jellyfish can make light too.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Ecology · Natural history
Imagine a large grouper opening its mouth beside a tiny fish. The little fish comes closer and looks for parasites on its skin. What could each fish gain from the encounter?
AvailableFree accessMultiple marine regions
Anatomy · Science
The white crowns on a branch of red coral may look like flowers. Look closer and you’ll find a mouth at the centre of each one. Each crown belongs to a tiny animal called a polyp.
AvailableFree accessMultiple marine regions
Ecology · Natural history
A fish can eat a leaf or hide among leaves. A mussel catches food that drifts past in the water. These are examples from the Mediterranean. Look for the same kinds of links between living things in other seas.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the rest
AvailableFree access
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Biotope · Environment
What looks like a carpet of pink and purple pebbles can be alive. Hard red algae called maerl grow slowly on the seabed. As their branches pile up, little animals find places to hide between them.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Environment
Long green leaves sway beneath the Mediterranean. They belong to a flowering plant called Neptune grass. It has roots, flowers and fruit, and it grows slowly enough that a meadow can take a long time to form.
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restArticle region: Mediterranean
Biotope · Environment
In the Mediterranean Sea, you might see what looks like rock covered with colourful animals. Living things helped build part of that rock. It can take hundreds or even thousands of years to form. This place is called a…
Available1/3 public · licence required for the restMultiple marine regions
Anatomy · Behaviour
A fish can sit on a rock and be hard to pick out. Another can hide in the sand with just its eyes showing. These are ways of using camouflage. It can help an animal stay safe or get close to its food.
AvailableFree accessMultiple marine regions
Way of life · Behaviour
Hundreds of fish can turn almost at once. They swim closer together, then spread out again. This group is called a **school of fish**. Each fish pays attention to the ones nearby. That helps the whole school move…
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