Animals are a huge part of this world. And sea animals are quite important for the entire environment and nature.
Let’s find out more about them!
- Octopuses have 8 arms and 8 bulbous heads.
- Some people call their arms tentacles, but that’s wrong.
- The arms seem to have a mind of their own since 2/3 of an octopus’ neurons are in its arms rather than its head.
- Also, they have 3 hearts!
- One pumps blood through its organ.
- The rest pump blood through its gills.
- Their blood is not red, but blue.
- The colored blue blood of the octopuses is because of a protein named hemocyanin.
- When they sense a predator they squirt ink in order to protect themselves.
- The ink will temporarily blind and confuse the attacker.
- They belong in the order of Octapoda.
- The word octopus is derived from Latin and ancient Greek.
- Octo means eight in modern greek.
- Octopus means eight feet in greek.
- The giant Pacific octopusis considered to be the largest known octopus species.
- Adults usually weigh around 15 kg.
- The smallest species is Octopus wolfi.
- It is around 2.5 cm and weighs less than 1 g.
- Octopuses can feel anything since they have a wonderful sense of touch.
- Actually, their suckers have receptors that enable an octopus to taste what it is touching.
- The majority of octopuses have internal neither skeletons nor protective shells.
- Their bodies are soft.
- This makes them able to squeeze into small cracks and crevices.
- Octopuses have powerful jaws and venomous saliva.
- Octopuses used to have hard shells a long time ago.
- They lost them during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
- When an octopus is swimming, the organ that delivers blood to the organs stops beating.
- Octopuses prefer to crawl, rather than swimming.
- Most of the octopuses live near the water’s surface in shells, reefs, and crevices.
- These are called pelagic.
- Octopuses like to be left alone.
- But sometimes they “hang out” with other octopuses.
- Octopuses can also change color to hide and match their surroundings.
- They can turn blue, gray, pink, brown or green.
- Octopuses are carnivores.
- They prefer clams, shrimp, lobsters, fish, sharks, and even birds.
- The way octopuses catch their prey and eat is by dropping down on their prey, enveloping it with their arms and pulling the animal into their mouth.
- Some species live around 6 months and some other 5 years.
- Mating and reproduction is fatal for them because soon after they mate, they die.
- Females usually lay 200,000 to 400,000 eggs, which they guard very carefully.
- Sometimes they even stop eating.
- By the time the eggs are ready to hatch males have swum away and are ready to die after a few months.
- Baby octopuses are called larvae.
- The oldest octopus fossil that has been discovered is from an animal that lived 296 million years ago.
- This is millions of years before the dinosaurs lived.
- 1. Seals are part of the pinniped order of marine mammals, which also includes sea lions, walruses, and fur seals.
- There are 33 species of pinnipeds in the world and all are believed to have evolved from once terrestrial otter-like creatures.
- Seals prefer cold sea waters and are primarily found in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
- In the wild, seals can live for up to 30 years.
- Females boasting a higher life expectancy than males.
- The smallest seal species is the Galapagos Fur Seal (1m in length and 45kg in weight).
- The largest is the Southern Elephant Seal which weighs a whopping 3,850kgs and measures up to 5m in length!
- Some seal species, like the Leopard Seal, feed off fellow seals!
- Most, however, feed off crustaceans, fish, and seabirds (if they can catch them).
- The Crabeater Seal, which can be spotted on an Antarctic cruise, boasts the largest population of all the seal species.
- Estimates put their numbers at between 2 and 75 million. individuals, worldwide. As cute and friendly as they may look, seals can actually be fervently territorial and quite aggressive.
- Seals can sleep underwater and usually only come on land to escape predators like whales and sharks, as well as to mate, give birth, feed and molt.
- Some seals can dive up to 900m in-depth and some can hold their breath underwater for up to 2 hours!
- A seal mum’s milk can be up to 50% fat, and pups can put on 2kgs a DAY.
- Seals have been hunted throughout history, with their fat and fur being highly coveted. Although a great majority of species are not endangered seals are still a highly protected mammal in most parts of the world.
- Over the last century, various species have gone extinct, including the Caribbean Monk Seal and Japanese Sea Lion.
- In Antarctic waters, there is a restricted amount of seal harvesting still being allowed.
- The main species hunted are Crabeater, Leopard, and Weddell seals.
- In Gisborne, New Zealand, a resident elephant seal, named Homer, had an infamous reputation for hooliganism. He used to routinely overturn parked cars in town and once even knocked over a restaurant’s power supply box. Experts believed that Homer’s energetic ‘rubbings’ were actually ever-so-slightly misguided sexual advances.
- Seals boast a gestation period of about 11 months.
- The longest pregnancy though is in the pinniped family belongs to the walrus, which is pregnant for about 16 months.
- Mother and baby seals recognize each other through a familiar call, with a study in Alaska finding that mum-bub recognition was possible even after a 4-year long separation.
- A study in the Falkland islands proved that alpha-male Elephant Seals are quite the possessive Don Juans. In one colony alone, over 92% of pups born at any given time were fathered by the group’s alpha-male alone and up to 72% of all other males in the colony, had NEVER been observed mating at all.
- Seals are incredibly smart and powerful sea creatures.
- There are a few records of adult leopard seals attacking humans.
- The word whales don’t include the dolphins.
- Filter feeders have baleens that filter plankton. Examples of these whales include blue, humpback, and minke.
- Whales are part of the ‘cetacea’ family as they have fins, flukes, and blowholes.
- The largest whale in the world was the blue whale at 30 meters and over 180 tonnes, whereas the smallest was the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5m.
- Whales have been hunted for their meat, bones, and for medicinal purposes.
- Due to the practice of whaling, most species are now endangered.
- The hippopotamus is the whales’ closest living relative.
- Whales are descended from the Artiodactyl species of dinosaurs, which were land livers.
- They are warm-blooded creatures.
- Their blubber stores energy and insulates the body, keeping them alive through harsh winters.
- Baleen whales have two blowholes, whereas the toothed whales have only one.
- Male whales are called ‘bulls’.
- Females are known as ‘cows’.
- Newborns are called ‘calves’.
- Most cows give births to one single calf, which is born tail first to help minimize drowning.
- Calves can reach maturity between 7 – 10 years.
- Whales live in families, known as pods.
- Only one hemisphere of a whales brain is asleep at one time.
- Scientists believe that whales are capable of teaching, learning, co-operating with others, scheming, and grieving.
- Breaching or cresting the surface of the ocean can be seen as signs of courting, danger, dominance, and play.
- Killer whales spy hop in the water using their buoyancy. This is due to their inquisitive nature.
- When a whale slaps its fluke (tail) against the water, this is to scare smaller fish, as it forages for food.
- Whales communicate through a series of “songs”.
- Dory, in the animated film Finding Nemo, believed she could speak whale.
- Whale watching is a popular tourist pastime, in which groups are taken onto the ocean in a large boat to witness the mammals’ behavior and antics.
- Whales feature heavily in religion and mythology. The most famous is Jonas who was eaten by a whale.
- Moby Dick (from the novel of the same name) and Monstro (from Pinocchio) are the most feared whales of fiction.
- There are many famous films depicting whales, including Big Miracle, the Free Willy franchise, Moby Dick, Pinocchio, and Whale Rider.
- Injured whales are often taken into captivity to survive.
- However, some are so used to their new lifestyles that they cannot become part of the pod once more, resulting usually in their deaths.
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