If the past year has confirmed anything, it’s that the ocean is filled with wonder and the last 12 months have been filled with ocean stories enough to fascinate, intrigue, inspire, and astonish. Whether it’s one-trillion tonne icebergs floating across the ocean expanse or rare footage of a giant deep-sea squid carrying its eggs, when it comes to ocean storytelling, there’s only one guarantee: things are going to get weird.

With such a spectrum of ocean tales to look back on over the last year, it stands to reason that picking our favourite has been one of the bigger challenges we’ve faced in 2024. Nevertheless, we here at Oceanographic Magazine never shy away from such adversity.

So, as we see out a year filled with intrigue, let’s take a look back at some of the weirdest and most wonderful tales we’ve been privileged enough to share with you all…

Many legs bore many eggs

It wasn’t until the the end of the year that some of the most mesmerising ocean footage emerged, courtesy of the brains at the Schmidt Ocean Institute, capturing an incredibly rare moment that a giant deep-sea squid mother carried her many eggs through the waters off Chile.

Usually, squid species lay their eggs on the seafloor and leave them alone after they despatch them. This species of squid – the black-eyed squid – however, chooses to carry and brood its eggs for several months, making it one of only two so far confirmed species known to take care of their offspring after spawning.

The cluster captured in this rare footage includes around 3,000 eggs. Imagine wrapping all those presents at Christmas!

A ‘mega-berg’ breaks loose 

In mid-December, imaginations were captured across the globe by the news that the world’s largest and oldest iceberg, a ‘mega-berg’ double the size of Greater London and weighing more than one trillion tonnes, had made a break from the ocean vortex that had immobilised it for decades, to float freely through the Southern Ocean.

The colossus iceberg, named A23a was calved from the Antarctica Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986 and – after spending many years grounded on the seafloor and then spinning on the spot in an ocean vortex, finally broke free from its position north of the South Orkney Islands.

It’s anticipated that this giant will continue its journey into the Southern Ocean where it will eventually encounter warmer water and break up into smaller icebergs before, finally melting away, thus bringing the decades long dramatic life line of the A23a to an end.

Giving the attention this mega-berg caught in the final weeks of 2024, we wonder if in hindsight, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey would have given it a catchier name?

Running AMOC

There’s little else like the threat of climate collapse to underscore the crucial role the ocean plays in maintaining the planetary balance, and word that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – the ocean mechanism responsible for moving heat energy around the planet – is close to collapse is certainly one of those. 

It was in the lead up to COP16, the UN’s Biodiversity Conference that more than 40 of the world’s leading ocean and climate scientists signed their open letter to world leaders, warning that this very network of Atlantic ocean currents keeping the Earth’s climate stable could be on the very brink of collapse.

While this has been the concern of scientists for some time, the revelation came this year that the collapse of the AMOC – an event that could lead to “devastating and irreversible climate impacts” for countries around the world, could be closer with greater impacts than previously estimated.

The warning came with a stark and urgent call to reduce carbon emissions now.

Creepy crustaceans

It may have missed the Halloween humdrum when its discovery was announced in late November, but that shouldn’t detract from just how hauntingly creepy this crustacean appears. Even its name means ‘darkness’ in the language of the people of the Andes, the region from whence this creature came…

While looking like a Ridley Scott creation, this crustacean – the Dulcibella camanchaca – dwells in the depths nearly 8,000 metres below sea level where it has evolved not just to survive but thrive, making use of its raptorial appendages to predate on the most vulnerable.

As well as making for a great horror story, this predatory amphipod (shrimp-like crustacean) is actually the first largest of its kind to be discovered at such ocean depths, providing another crucial piece of the puzzle helping scientists better understand how life has evolved in the deep sea, inarguably one of the strangest places on Earth.

It might look like a thing of nightmares, but it’s a fairytale discovery for scientists in the know.

Synthesisers and salmon hats… Orcas go ‘80s

The Twenties have certainly been a decade for retro revival so far, proving that some things never go out of style. Other certainly do. For a brief spell back in October this year, there were some very real threats that the orca ‘salmon hat’ was back in vogue. 

It may have taken 37 years to come back around, but when observers recorded a pod of orca in the Northwest Pacific wearing salmon on their heads – a bizarre trend that caught on among some orca groups in 1987 – a memo went around that the trend had returned.

Motivation behind the fashion fad is still unknown, with a number of hypotheses doing the rounds in scientific communities, including that hat-wearing among orca “simply feels good”.

As quick as the fashion choice emerged, it had disappeared again, leaving scientists to conclude that the appetite for salmon hats in 2024 just isn’t what it was in the ‘80s. Perhaps some things are best left in the past, after all? 

And there you have it, a smattering of some of the weirdest and most wonderful stories from across the ocean expanse over the last 12 months. Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom and join us on our journey into the New Year and beyond.