Ocean life in olden days: Researchers upend modern notions of 'natural' animal sizes, abundance

Census of Marine Life historians reconstruct images of past sea life that boggle today's imagination

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		IMAGE: This Byzantine image from the 11th century shows night fishing with a lamp and a net. Click here for more information.

Before oil hunters in the early 1800s harpooned whales by the score, the ocean around New Zealand teemed with about 27,000 southern right whales - roughly 30 times as many as today - according to one of several astonishing reconstructions of ocean life in olden days to be presented at a Census of Marine Life conference May 26-28.