Researchers, led by ecologist Sandra Pompa from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have identified 20 of the most important regions of the world’s oceans and lakes that are crucial to ensuring the survival of marine mammals such as seals, whales and porpoises.

Finless porpoises may be more endangered than previously thought.

Two recent sightings of porpoises in the Baltic Sea thrilled biologists since the marine mammals were thought extinct in the region, a Swedish researcher says. Anna Roos, a researcher at the Swedish Museum of National History, said the two porpoise sightings off Sweden's west coast occurred in a span of less than 10 days, offering encouraging news about the animals' population in the Baltic, The Local reported Saturday. To get two reports from the central Baltic in such a short space of time is fantastic, Roos said in a statement.

Mexico’s swine flu crisis, coupled with its reeling economy, may end a plan to save the world's most endangered cetacean.

Census of Marine Life historians meeting in Vancouver, Canada, say they have reconstructed images of past sea life that boggle the imagination. The researchers said they used such sources as old ship logs, literary texts and tax records to reconstruct what life in the ocean was like prior to the early 1800s. Before oil hunters harpooned whales by the hundreds, the ocean around New Zealand teemed with about 27,000 southern right whales - roughly 30 times as many as today, the scientists said. And about the same time, U.K.