Interesting Facts: Ocean

Did You Know:

-Seahorses gained international protection on May 15, 2004
-What do South American Spider Monkeys, Ringtail Opossums and seahorses have in common? They all have prehensile tails.
-Seahorses are members of the Teleost suborder, or bony fish.
-Seahorses usually live in the tropics or along temperate coasts.
-The average height of a full-grown sea horse is 2-8 inches.
Seahorses also vary in color, including orange, red, yellows, grey, and greens.
-Seahorses can come in patterns like “zebra stripes” and spots.
-Seahorses change color to blend in with their surroundings.
-Seahorses feed on small living animals such as daphnia, cyclops, larvae of water insects, or mysids.
-Seahorses like to swim in pairs linked by their tales.
-Seahorses cannot curl their tails backwards.
-Seahorses belong to the vertabra group, meaning they have an interior skeleton.
-The small dorsal fins propel it through the water in an upright position, while it beats them back and forth, almost as fast as a humming bird flapping its wings.
-Seahorses usually mate under a full moon.
-The pectoral fins control turning and steering. When resting, the seahorse curls its tail around seaweed, to keep it from floating away...
-Seahorse natural predators are crabs, tuna, skates and rays.
-Seahorses are loyal and mate for life.
-During mating, the Seahorses utter musical sounds.
-The female deposits eggs into the male’s small pouch, and then leaves. Out of the entire animal kingdom, these are the only animals in which the male has babies!
-Twenty-five million seahorses a year are now being traded around the world - 64 percent more than in the mid-1990s - and environmentalists are increasingly concerned that the booming trade in seahorses is putting the creatures at risk.

Seahorses are truly unique, and not just because of their unusual equine shape. Unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. Rarer still, they are among the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young.

Found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world, these upright-swimming relatives of the pipefish can range in size from 0.6 inches (1.5 centimeters) to 14 inches (35 centimeters) long.

Male seahorses are equipped with a brood pouch on their ventral, or front-facing, side. When mating, the female deposits her eggs into his pouch, and the male fertilizes them internally. He carries the eggs in his pouch until they hatch, then releases fully formed, miniature seahorses into the water.

Because of their body shape, seahorses are rather inept swimmers and can easily die of exhaustion when caught in storm-roiled seas. They propel themselves by using a small fin on their back that flutters up to 35 times per second. Even smaller pectoral fins located near the back of the head are used for steering.

They anchor themselves with their prehensile tails to sea grasses and corals, using their elongated snouts to suck in plankton and small crustaceans that drift by. Voracious eaters, they graze continually and can consume 3,000 or more brine shrimp per day.

Population data for most of the world’s 35 seahorse species is sparse. However, worldwide coastal habitat depletion, pollution, and rampant harvesting, mainly for use in Asian traditional medicine, have made several species vulnerable to extinction.

Seahorse gives birth, Seahorse having babies, Seahorse birth

How the seahorse got its shape -- by Nature Video

How To Care For Seahorses

Seahorse Mating Dance

source: animals.nationalgeographic.com; www.iseahorses.com; youtube.com;

Quick Facts

Jellyfish are made up of an epidermis, gastrodermis and mesoglea. They do not have a central nervous system,a circulatory system, respiratory system, or a osmoregulatory system. They have an incomplete digestive system and therefore use the same orifice for intake of food and expulsion of waste materials.
The jellyfish don't have a brain or other sensory organs. They have small sensory organs called rhopalia on and around their bell. The rhopalia and nervous system help these fish to identify light and odor. The jellyfish use their 'nerve net' to detect the touch of another organism. This type of simple nervous system is found at the epidermis of these fish.
A group of jellyfish is called a 'smack'. They feed on small protozoa, large metazoa and other small fish in the sea. They generally trap these in their tentacles. Some of them do not have tentacles at all.
The male jellyfish releases its sperm into the water, which then travels to the mouth of the female jellyfish. This procedure allows for the fertilization of the ova. Most of these fish lodge the eggs in their oral armpits, forming a brood chamber for fertilization.
The tentacles of a jellyfish are an important defense mechanism. Each tentacle is covered with stinging cells, known as cnidocytes.
Jellyfish do not have any water motion, or are not hydrodynamic. This hampers their swimming speeds. It is necessary for them to create water currents which reaches their tentacles. They make this possible by opening and closing their bell shaped bodies in a rhythm.
Jellyfish swim by contracting and expanding their bodies. They do not have scales or shells. If exposed to the hot sun, they disappear, leaving only a circle of film.
Jellyfish have a defense mechanism of oral arms or tentacles which are covered with organelles called nematocysts. These nematocysts are paired with a capsule which contains a coiled filament that stings. The filament unwinds and launches into the target, thereby injecting toxins upon contact by foreign bodies.
Jellyfish are generally not dangerous to humankind. However, some can be very toxic, and cause deaths in humans. Recently, two deaths attributed to these fish were reported in Australia. A sting from these fish is extremely painful and can also cause various allergies in humans.

How jellyfish Work

FUNNY FACTS ABOUT THE JELLYFISH

The Box jellyfish has 64 anuses.
The Box jellyfish also has 24 eyes, but despite this, it can only see in a blurry fashion.
Jellyfish do not have a brain, respiratory system, circulatory system, or indeed an excretory system. Because of this, the jellyfish’s ‘mouth’ is also used for waste expulsion.

Did you know ...

... some jellyfish are bigger than a human and others are as small as a pinhead?

... people in some countries eat jellyfish?

... that jellyfish have been on Earth for millions of years, even before dinosaurs?

... jellyfish have no brain but some kinds have eyes?

... that jellyfish are mainly made up of water and protein?

... a group of jellyfish is called a smack?

What is a jellyfish?

The word jellyfish is a common term used to describe animals that are gelatinous or made up of ‘jelly-like’ material. There are many different types of jellyfish, including stinging kinds called medusae and non-stinging kinds called comb jellies or ctenophores. Another type of jelly animal called a salp is even in the same group as humans!

What is a bloom?

When huge numbers of plants or animals appear suddenly, scientists call it a 'bloom'. In some areas of the world, millions of jellyfish can swarm together, and these blooms cause problems for fisheries and tourism. If you've been at the beach or on a boat at some point when it seemed like jellyfish were everywhere – then maybe you have even seen a jellyfish bloom.

How do jellyfish blooms form?

Jellyfish are plankton (from the Greek word planktos, meaning to wander or drift) and are not strong swimmers, so they are at the mercy of the ocean currents. Blooms often form where two currents meet and if there is an onshore breeze thousands of jellyfish can be beached.