Interesting facts from the life of marine life. Message about marine life

If you have already read a couple of interesting articles on our website about the oceans, then most likely you are already aware that the seas and oceans cover the lion's share of the earth's surface. But these are all trifles, it turns out that the oceans contain 99% of the living space on earth.
The largest animal on our planet, larger than the dinosaurs that have ever existed, is the blue whale, which still lives in the ocean, and its heart is the size of a Volkswagen Phaeton.

Here are some more interesting facts about the mysterious creatures of the ocean.

Interesting facts about octopuses

The octopus has three hearts and its blood is light blue in color.
An adult octopus can squeeze through a hole the size of a dime. All this is due to the lack of bones.

Octopuses are completely deaf. An octopus can separate any of its limbs from itself in order to divert the attention of a predator, while at the same time giving the ripper its urine. Do not worry! After a while, the lost limb will grow back and nothing will remind you of the loss.
From fear, octopuses turn almost white. The ability to change color, the octopus owes to the presence of chromophore cells that can change color.
When trying to hide from the attacker, the octopus throws a cloud of ink into his eyes while the disoriented predator sits in complete shock, the octopus safely makes its legs.
Octopuses have great intelligence, we all know how they can uncork bottles in order to extract a delicacy from there.

The blue-ringed octopus, about the size of a golf ball and weighing only 100 grams, is one of the most poisonous animals on earth! Already 5 minutes after the bite, a person cannot swallow, and after an hour and a half death occurs from suffocation. Until now, science has not been able to create an antidote. The only method of salvation is prolonged artificial ventilation of the lungs until the poison recedes. These little killers live in the Indian Ocean, as well as off the coast of Australia.

The breeding process of octopuses is very interesting and worthy of special attention.
The female octopus gives birth only once in her life. At the same time, she finds a secluded place and lays about 60 thousand eggs.

For 3 months she does not hunt and does not eat anything, her main task is to ventilate the eggs and protect them from hungry fish. By the end of the third month, tiny octopuses emerge from the eggs.
Their mother, for long months of starvation and round-the-clock care, does not have the strength to hunt. Often a terrible death awaits her. Hungry fish greedily tear off the tentacles from the exhausted female octopus, and her weak attempts to fight back do not bring results. So the next time you buy an octopus carcass in a supermarket, think about it.

Interesting facts about jellyfish

Jellyfish have been around for over 650 million years, which means they are as old as dinosaurs and sharks. The body of a jellyfish is made up of over 95% water.

The box jellyfish, or as it is also called, the sea wasp, kills more people every year than any other sea creature. Her bite can kill in 3 minutes!, and she can swim at a speed of 2 meters per second. If you are stung by such a baby, the chances of having time to swim back to the shore, or even survive, are almost zero.

The amount of poison in such a jellyfish is sufficient to send 60 people to the next world.

Science knows jellyfish with a dome diameter of 2.5 meters, and the length of the tentacles reaches half the length of a football field. Others, on the contrary, are so small that their size does not exceed the size of a pinhead.

What is the lifespan of jellyfish? Some large jellyfish live for more than two years, most of them die in the first year of life.

Reproduction in jellyfish is also very interesting. Males release sperm into the water column next to the floating females. Larvae develop in the body of the female, later they settle on the seabed and attach themselves to stones, plants and shells. Holding on to the front end of the body, the young larva turns into a polyp. After a while, a small jellyfish will grow out of this polyp.

After breeding, jellyfish die, but there is a special kind of jellyfish that cheated death. The Turritopsis species (turitopsis nutricula) does not die after mating. She sits on the seabed, retracts her tentacles and gradually turns into a small polyp. In this way, she was able to renew her body and return to a very young polyp stage. Later it will grow back and repeat the cycle. Since jellyfish are food for many marine animals, it is very difficult for old individuals to live to see a new rebirth. However, under laboratory conditions, a jellyfish can be reborn many times, gaining a new life.

© Inga Korneshova especially for the site

The largest fish in the world- Whale shark.

The weight of this fish exceeds the weight of six elephants, and the length is eight times greater than human height.

The fastest fish- so-called fish sailboat.

Its speed can develop like the speed of a car - 100 km per hour. The nose of the fish is pointed and resembles a knife, with which it deftly "cuts" the waves.

Everyone knows that it is very dark at the bottom of the ocean, so some fish adapt and look for a replacement for the sun's rays. One of these fish is anglerfish.

Angler is a predator. She hunts for other inhabitants of the underwater world, attracting unsuspecting victims to herself with the alluring glow of her body.

Who could believe that squid is this an animal with a "jet engine"?

Everyone knows that the squid has neither fins nor a tail, but this does not prevent him from being very fast. The squid absorbs water into its body, and then pushes it back with such force that it pushes it forward with great speed.

The biggest octopus in the world. The length of the tentacles of this giant is 4 meters, and the weight is 75 kilograms.

It lives in northern waters, at a depth of no more than 250-300 meters. Lives in large burrows with a narrow entrance.

Only after reaching the age of one month bottlenose dolphins begin to sleep, and then a characteristic feature is that they sleep with one eye open. Until the age of one month, dolphins do not sleep at all.

Another interesting fact is that dolphins are able to recognize themselves in the mirror.

Shooting fish - squirrel.

A small, at first glance, harmless fish, in fact, is a well-aimed shooter - shooting even from a three-meter distance, it still will not miss. It shoots with a powerful jet of water, after which the insect located on the surface of the water begins to gradually “sink”, and the spatter fish eats it.

Oral cavity sea ​​snails dotted with microscopic teeth. The total number of which is about 25 thousand.

The sexual intercourse of a snail can last up to 12 hours, but they mate only once in a lifetime.

Fish that can walk, in the truest sense of the word - Mudskippers, and they walk with the help of their fins.

The most interesting thing is that these fish can live both in water and on land, with the help of their ability to renew their air supply in the pouches behind their cheeks.

cunning fish needle, hunts in a non-standard way - approaching the victim, she hides behind other large fish, and having tuned in, she sharply sucks water together with the victim into her long "beak".

Can you roll your eyes in all directions, or better still, look at your brain? A fish Barreleye Fish - maybe.

The two green hemispheres in the fish's head are its eyes (two dots above the mouth, just a hoax), since the fish's head is transparent, it can easily view its brain.

Because of crabs(males) beckon females with only one claw, it is predominantly larger than the second.

Having lost a claw in a fight for a female with another male, crabs grow a new one, much larger than the one he had, but less strong.

One of the largest and most poisonous jellyfish is - sea ​​wasp(Chironex Fleckeri).

An almost invisible jellyfish in the water - from which a collision with it is inevitable. The victim experiences hellish pain that does not stop for 10-12 hours. Torment is accompanied by temporary loss of consciousness, up to death.

polyp venom Physalia(Physalia aretusa) reminiscent of cobra venom.

Could you not eat for three months? Not?

BUT leeches may not eat for up to two years, and after each reception write they grow significantly.

Leeches live for about 20 years.

When a large swarm is gathered during the mating season, the female sea ​​worm pounces on the male and bites off his tail.It is precisely in the tail of the male that sperm is contained

Sperm moving through the digestive tract reaches the egg and successfully fertilizes it.

The strength of two people is not enough to tear abalone from a stone, and the length of such an ear is only 10 centimeters.

If red algae are present in the diet of the abalone, then the shell will turn the same color.

Having twisted his stomach and eating his prey, he slowly absorbs it outside his body - this is how she is - starfish.

This is the only animal with such amazing abilities.

By calculating the approximate weight of one adult brown bear, you can find out the weight of the tongue blue whale .

Seas and oceans are the cradle of life on Earth. According to some theories, all life on the planet originated in water. The sea resembles a huge metropolis, where everything lives according to its own laws, everyone takes his place and performs a very important function. If this order, which has developed into a harmonious mosaic, is violated, then this city will cease to exist. Therefore, it is important to know about the wealth of the animal world. You can find out who the marine inhabitants are, photos with the names of the most common species and interesting facts about their life.

All living creatures that inhabit the sea are conditionally divided into several categories:

• animals (mammals);
• fish;
• algae and plankton;
• deep sea fauna;
• snakes and turtles.

There are some animals that are difficult to attribute to a particular group. For example, spongy or sponges.

marine mammals

Scientists have discovered more than 125 species of mammals - the inhabitants of the sea. They can be divided into three main groups:

1. Walruses, fur seals and seals (pinnipeds order).
2. Dolphins and whales (a detachment of cetaceans).
3. Manatees and dugongs (a detachment of herbivores).
4. Sea otters (or otters).

The first group is one of the largest (more than 600 million individuals). They are all carnivores and feed on fish. Walruses are very large animals. Some individuals reach 1.5 tons in weight and grow up to 4 m in length. The dexterity and flexibility of walruses are amazing at such sizes, they easily move on land and in water. Due to the special structure of the pharynx, they can spend a long time in the sea and will not drown, even if they fall asleep. Thick brown skin becomes lighter with age, and if you manage to see a pink, even almost white, walrus, you know that he is about 35 years old. For these individuals, this is already old age. The walrus is not confused with the seal only because of their distinctive feature - tusks. Measurement of one of the largest tusks showed almost 80 cm in length, and weight - about 5 kg. The front fins of the walrus end with fingers - five on each paw.

Seals live in the Arctic and Antarctic, so they can withstand extremely low temperatures (down to -80˚C). Most of them do not have external auricles, but they hear very well. Seal fur is short but thick, which helps the animal move underwater. It seems that seals on land are clumsy and defenseless. They move with the help of the forelimbs and abdomen, their hind legs are poorly developed. However, they move briskly in the water and swim excellently.

Sea lions are very voracious. They eat 4-5 kg ​​of fish per day. The leopard seal is a subspecies of seals that can catch and eat other small seals or penguins. Appearance is typical for most pinnipeds. The fur seals are much smaller than their fellows in the detachment, so they crawl on land with the help of all four limbs. The eyes of these inhabitants of the sea are beautiful, but it is known that they see poorly - myopia.

Dolphins and whales are related to each other. Dolphins are one of the most unusual creatures on the planet. Their distinctive features:

• The absence of ears, nose, small eyes and at the same time a unique echolocation that allows you to accurately determine the location of objects in the water.
• Bare, streamlined body, without signs of wool or scales, the surface of which is constantly renewed.
• Voice and the beginnings of speech, allowing dolphins to communicate with each other in a flock.

Whales are giants among mammals. They feed on plankton or small fish, breathe through a special hole called a “blowhole”. During exhalation, a fountain of moist air from the lungs passes through it. Whales move in the water with the help of fins, the size of which differs in different species. The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on Earth.

The most popular types of sea fish

The second largest group of marine inhabitants includes the following species:

• Cod (blue whiting, cod, saffron cod, hake, pollock, saithe and others).
• Mackerel (mackerel, tuna, mackerel and other fish).
• Flounders (flounder, halibut, dexist, embassicht, etc.).

• Herring (Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic herring, Baltic herring, Pacific herring, European sardine, European sprat).

• Garfish (garfish, medaka, saury, etc.).
• Sea sharks.

The first species lives in the seas of the Atlantic Ocean, comfortable conditions for them are 0 ˚ C. Its main external difference is the mustache on the chin. They live mainly on the bottom, feed on plankton, but there are also predatory species. Cod is the most numerous representative of this subspecies. It breeds in large numbers - about 9 million eggs per spawning. It is of great commercial importance, since meat and liver have a high fat content. Pollock is a long-liver in the cod family (lives 16 - 20 years). Lives in cold waters, is a semi-deep water fish. Pollock is caught everywhere.

Mackerels do not lead a bottom lifestyle. Their meat is valued for its high nutritional value, fat content and a large amount of vitamins.

In flounders, the eyes are located on one side of the head: right or left. They have symmetrical fins and a flattened body.

Herring fish is a pioneer among commercial fish. Distinctive features - no or very small teeth, and almost all lack scales.

Garfish-shaped elongated fish with long, sometimes asymmetrical jaws.

The shark is one of the largest marine predators. The whale shark is the only one that feeds on plankton. The unique abilities of sharks are sense of smell and hearing. They can smell the smell for several hundred kilometers, and the inner ear is able to pick up ultrasounds. The shark's powerful weapon is its sharp teeth, with which it tears the victim's body to pieces. One of the main misconceptions is the opinion that all sharks are dangerous to humans. Only 4 species are dangerous to people - bull shark, white, tiger, long-winged.

Moray eels are marine predators from the eel family, whose body is covered with poisonous mucus. Outwardly, they are very similar to snakes. They practically do not see, they navigate in space by smell.

Algae and plankton

It is the most numerous form of life. There are two types of plankton:

• Phytoplankton. It feeds on photosynthesis. Basically, it's algae.
• Zooplankton (tiny animals and fish larvae). Eats phytoplankton.

Plankton includes algae, bacteria, protozoa, crustacean larvae, and jellyfish.

Jellyfish are one of the oldest creatures on Earth. Their exact species composition is unknown. One of the largest representatives is the Lion's Mane jellyfish (tentacle length 30 m). The "Australian wasp" is especially dangerous. It is small in size and looks like transparent jellyfish - about 2.5 cm. When a jellyfish dies, its tentacles can sting for a few more days.

deep sea fauna

The inhabitants of the seabed are a great many, but their sizes are microscopic. These are mainly the simplest unicellular organisms, coelenterates, worms, crustaceans and molluscs. However, in deep water there are both fish and jellyfish, which have the ability to glow. Therefore, we can say that under the water column is not absolute darkness. The fish living there are predatory, they use light to attract prey. One of the most unusual and terrifying, at first glance, is howliod. This is a small black fish with a long mustache on the lower lip, with which it moves, and with terrible long teeth.

One of the most recognizable representatives of the order of mollusks is the squid. It lives in both warm and cold seas. The colder the water, the paler the color of the squid. The change in color saturation also depends on the electrical impulse. Some individuals have three hearts, so they have the ability to regenerate. Squids are predators, they feed on small crustaceans and plankton.

Clams also include oysters, mussels, and scallops. These representatives have a soft body, closed in a shell of two valves. They practically do not move, burrow into silt or live in large colonies, located on rocks and underwater reefs.

snakes and turtles

Sea turtles are large animals. They reach 1.5 m in length and can weigh up to 300 kg. Ridley is the smallest among all turtles, weighing no more than 50 kg. The front paws of turtles are better developed than the hind ones. This helps them swim long distances. It is known that sea turtles appear on land only for procreation. The shell is a bony formation with thick shields. Its color is light brown to dark green.

To get their own food, turtles swim to a depth of 10 meters. Basically, they feed on mollusks, algae and sometimes small jellyfish.

Sea snakes exist in 56 species, united in 16 genera. They are found off the coast of Africa and Central America, in the Red Sea and off the coast of Japan. A large population lives in the South China Sea.

The snakes do not dive deeper than 200 meters, but without air they can stay for 2 hours. Therefore, these underwater inhabitants do not swim further than 5 - 6 km from land. Crustaceans, shrimps, eels became food for them. The most famous representatives of sea snakes:

• The ringed emidocephalus is a snake with poisonous teeth.

Marine inhabitants, their photos with names, habitats and unusual facts of life are of great interest to both scientists and amateurs. The sea is a whole universe, the secrets of which people will have to learn for more than one millennium.

Let's start with lobsters, they really feel pain when they are thrown into boiling water. However, by immersing them in salt water before cooking, you can give them anesthesia.

2. The starfish is the only animal that can turn its stomach inside out. When it approaches its prey (usually representatives of molluscs), the star sticks out its stomach through its mouth and covers the victim's shell with it. It then slowly digests the fleshy parts of the mollusk outside its body.

3. Newborn barnacle crayfish balyanus (barnacle) is similar to daphnia (water flea). It is also called sea acorn or sea tulip. At the next stage of development, he has three eyes and twelve legs. In the third stage of development, it has twenty-four legs and no eyes. Balanuses are attached to a solid object and remain there for life.

4. When abalone clams feed on red algae, their shell turns red.
A 10 cm long abalone can hold on to a stone so tightly that two strong people cannot tear it off.

5. Sea worms mate as follows: during the mating season, females and males gather in a swarm. Suddenly, the females pounce on the males and bite off their tails. The tails contain sperm. When swallowed, it moves through the digestive tract and fertilizes the eggs of the female.

6. Snails only mate once in their lives. Mating can last up to twelve hours.

7. When mating, a male leech (leeches are hermaphrodites and can play the role of either sex) clings to the body of the female and places a bag of sperm on her skin. This sac secretes a strong, tissue-damaging enzyme that eats a hole in her body and fertilizes the eggs inside her.

8. Leeches belong to the class of animals. They are considered centenarians, tk. can live over 20 years. Leeches can go without food for a very long time - up to two (!) years. After each meal, they grow right before our eyes.
Leeches are big clean and live only in the cleanest water bodies of the planet, especially there are a lot of them in ecologically clean places. Unfortunately, due to the pollution of the atmosphere, leeches are becoming less and less with each code. As a result, the leech was listed in the Red Book and now it is protected by law.
Those leeches that are grown in captivity treat various diseases much worse, unlike their fellow leeches that live in the wild. Therefore, it is more effective to use special wild leeches for the treatment.

9. The breath of a jellyfish is very different from the breath of a person or even a fish. The jellyfish does not have lungs and gills, as well as any other respiratory organ. The walls of its gelatinous body and tentacles are so thin that oxygen molecules freely penetrate through the jelly-like "skin" straight into the internal organs. Thus, the jellyfish breathes the entire surface of its body.

10. Farmers in the Caribbean use the poison of a certain type of jellyfish as poison for rats.

11. The beautiful but deadly Australian sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri) is the most poisonous jellyfish in the world. Since 1880, 66 people have died from its heart-paralytic poison near the coast of Queensland; in the absence of medical care, the victims died within 1-5 minutes. One of the effective means of protection are women's tights. Lifeguards in Queensland now wear oversized pantyhose when surfing

12. Heikegani crabs live off the coast of Japan, the pattern on the shell of which resembles the face of an angry samurai. According to the popularizer of science Carl Sagan, this species owes its appearance to unintentional artificial selection. Many generations of Japanese fishermen, catching these crabs, released them back into the sea, as they considered them to be reincarnations of samurai who died in battle. By doing this, fishermen increased the chances of heikegani to reproduce and increase their number among other crabs.

13. In male fiddler crabs, one claw is significantly larger than the other. These crabs got their name because, as it were, they call females to themselves by moving this claw. Males of one of the types of attracting crab Uca mjobergi went further - if they lose a large claw in a fight with another male, then they grow it even larger, although much weaker. However, for females, its appearance becomes more significant, and other males are afraid to engage in battle with the owner of such a claw.

14. A new species of large squid was discovered by scientists in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Representatives of this species reach a length of 70 cm. They belong to the Chiroteuthid family - deep-sea squids with a long narrow body.

15. Deep sea tunicates are one of the strangest prehistoric animals. They are found when ice breaks in Antarctica. These meter-long worms are considered the first life forms to inhabit the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean.

16. Barreleye Fish - the fish can rotate its eyes in all directions, and since the head of the fish is transparent, it can also try to see its brain, if any. (The black dots above the mouth are not the eyes. The eyes are the green hemispheres in the head.)

17. Needlefish hunt in a completely unique way: it approaches the prey, often hiding behind other fish, and sucks it with lightning speed into its long "beak". According to its characteristics, the needlefish is very similar to the seahorse.

18. For centuries, scientists since the Greek philosopher Aristotle have tried to understand how eels reproduce. Today, the female is known to spawn in the Sargasso Sea, between Bermuda and the Caribbean. The little larvae travel many thousands of kilometers to return to the rivers where their parents come from.

19. Not only stingrays have electric organs. The body of the African river catfish malapterurus is wrapped like a fur coat with a gelatinous layer in which an electric current is generated. Electric organs account for about a quarter of the weight of the entire catfish. Its discharge voltage reaches 360 V, it is dangerous even for humans and, of course, fatal for fish.

20. A species of starfish called Lunckia columbiae can completely reproduce its body from a particle 1 centimeter long.

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Interesting facts about marine life.

Everyone knows that about 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water. Ultimately, about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water on the planet in the seas, rivers and oceans are still poorly understood on Earth, as are the creatures that live in them.

Everything inaccessible enchants. And what could be farther from a person than the ocean floor? Sea creatures are so unlike earthly creatures. I really want to know more about them. What do they eat? How do they live and protect themselves? So many things that you really want to know. Looking at the surface of the water, it is difficult to imagine the diversity of life that is hidden below.

Atoll Jellyfish (Atolla vanhoeffeni)

The unusually beautiful Atoll jellyfish lives at a depth where sunlight does not penetrate. In times of danger, it is able to glow, attracting large predators. Jellyfish do not seem tasty to them, and predators eat their enemies with pleasure.

The Atoll jellyfish lives at a depth of over 700 meters.

This jellyfish is capable of emitting a bright red glow, which is a consequence of the breakdown of proteins in its body. As a rule, large jellyfish are dangerous creatures, but you should not be afraid of the Atoll, because its habitat is where no swimmer can reach.


Medusa begins to glow at the moment of danger.

Blue Angel (Glaucus atlanticus)

A very tiny mollusk rightfully deserves its name, it seems to be floating on the water surface. To become lighter and stay at the very edge of the water, he swallows air bubbles from time to time.

The blue angel grows no more than 3 cm.

These unusual creatures have an outlandish body shape. They are blue above and silver below. Nature knowingly provided for such a disguise - the Blue Angel goes unnoticed by birds and marine predators. A thick layer of mucus around the mouth allows it to feed on small, poisonous sea creatures.

The blue angel is also called the commander in chief or the dragon.

Harp Sponge (Сhondrocladia lyra)

This mysterious marine predator is still not well understood. The structure of his body resembles a harp, hence the name. The sponge is immobile. She clings to the sediment of the seabed and hunts, gluing small underwater inhabitants to her sticky tips.

Sponge-harp is a predator.

The harp sponge covers its prey with a bactericidal film and gradually digests it. There are individuals with two or more lobes, which are connected in the center of the body. The more blades, the more food the sponge will catch.

Sponge-harp lives at a depth of 3-3.5 km.

Octopus Dumbo (Grimpoteuthis)

The octopus got its name because of the resemblance to the Disney hero Dumbo the elephant, although it has a semi-gelatinous body of a rather modest size. Its fins resemble elephant ears. He swings them when he swims, which looks quite funny.

Octopus Dumbo looks like an elephant.

Not only the "ears" help to move, but also the peculiar funnels located on the body of the octopus, through which it releases water under pressure. Dumbo lives at a very great depth, so we know very little about him. Its diet consists of all kinds of mollusks and worms.

Yeti Crab (Kiwa hirsuta)

The name of this animal speaks for itself. The crab, covered with white shaggy fur, really resembles a bigfoot. He lives in cold waters at such a depth where there is no access to light, so he is completely blind.

Yeti crab.

These amazing animals grow microorganisms on their claws. Some scientists believe that the crab needs these bacteria to purify water from toxic substances, others suggest that crabs grow food for themselves on bristles.

Short-nosed bat (Ogcocephalus)

This fashionista fish with bright red lips can't swim at all. Living at a depth of more than two hundred meters, it has a flat body covered with a shell, and legs-fins, thanks to which the short-nosed Bat slowly walks along the bottom.

The bat lives at a depth of 200 to 1000 meters.

It gets food with the help of a special growth - a kind of retractable fishing rod with an odorous bait that attracts prey. Inconspicuous coloration and a shell with spikes help the fish hide from predators. Perhaps this is the funniest animal among the inhabitants of the oceans.

The bat can lie motionless for a long time, lying in wait for prey.

Sea Slug Felimare Picta Felimare Picta- one of the species of sea slugs that lives in the waters of the Mediterranean. He looks very extravagant. The yellow-blue body seems to be surrounded by a delicate airy frill.

The sea slug Felimare Picta grows up to 20 centimeters.

Felimare Picta, although it is a mollusk, does without a shell. And why should he? In case of danger, the sea slug has something much more interesting. For example, acidic sweat that is released on the surface of the body. It’s not good for anyone who wants to treat himself to this mysterious mollusk!

The bright slug looks funny.

Flamingo Tongue Clam (Cyphoma gibbosum)

This creature is found on the western coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Having a brightly colored mantle, the mollusk completely covers its plain shell with it and thus protects it from the negative influence of marine organisms.


The Flamingo Tongue snail grows up to 4.5 cm.

Like an ordinary snail, the "Flamingo Tongue" hides in its shell in case of impending danger. By the way, the mollusk got its name due to its bright color with characteristic spots. In nutrition, it prefers poisonous gogonaria. In the process of eating, the snail absorbs the poison of its prey, after which it becomes poisonous itself.

The mollusk carries a fungus that leads to the death of the coral.

Leafy Sea Dragon (Phycodurus eques)

The sea dragon is a true virtuoso of mimicry. It is covered with "leaves" that help it to appear inconspicuous against the backdrop of the underwater landscape. Interestingly, such abundant vegetation does not help the dragon to move at all. Only two tiny fins located on its chest and back are responsible for speed. The leaf dragon is a predator. It feeds by sucking prey into itself.


The sea dragon has a beautiful plumage.

Whelps feel comfortable in the shallow waters of the warm seas. And these marine inhabitants are also known as excellent fathers, because it is the males who bear offspring and take care of him.

The sea dragon is the official emblem of the state of South Australia.

Salps (Salpidae)

Salps are invertebrate marine inhabitants that have a barrel-shaped body, through the transparent shell of which internal organs are visible.

Salps can form chains up to a meter long.

In the ocean depths, animals form long chains-colonies that are easily torn apart even by a slight wave impact. Salps reproduce by budding.

Salps are found in all oceans except the Arctic Ocean.

Piglet squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi)

The outlandish and little-studied underwater creature resembles Piglet from the famous cartoon. The completely transparent body of the piglet squid is covered with age spots, the combination of which sometimes gives it a cheerful look. Around the eyes are the so-called photophores - organs of luminescence.

Squid-pig does not grow more than 10 cm.

This clam is slow. It's funny that the squid-pig moves upside down, because of which its tentacles look like a forelock. He lives at a depth of 100 meters.

The piggy squid looks like a cartoon character.

Ribbon Moray (Rhinomuraena guaesita)

This underwater inhabitant is quite unusual. Throughout life, the tape moray eel is able to change sex and color three times, depending on the stages of its development. So, when the individual is still immature, it is painted black or dark blue.

Ribbon moray is a hermaphrodite.

Growing up to a hundred centimeters, the moray eel turns into a male and turns blue, and at the peak of maturation, a unique fish turns out to be a female and acquires a bright yellow color. Her body does not have scales and is covered with bactericidal mucus, her nose resembles two delicate petals, and her mouth is always wide open, which gives the fish a formidable look. In fact, the moray eel is not at all aggressive, and keeps its mouth open due to underdeveloped gills.

Moray eels feed on small fish.

Drop fish (Psychrolutes marcidus)

The blob fish is a rather unusual creature. The body completely devoid of scales looks like jelly, and the flattened nose, large mouth and bulging eyes make the fish sad and unsympathetic.

The drop fish lives at depths of more than 200 m.

Being an inhabitant of deep water, a strange fish does not need a swim bladder and fins. The gel-like structure of the body helps it stay on the surface. The drop fish feeds on those marine inhabitants that, through negligence, swam into her mouth.

Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus)

Is it possible to think that these unusual Christmas trees are worms, although not simple, but marine polychaetes? Their shape and bright colors make these creatures elegant and unique.

"Christmas tree" is a very unusual worm.

The bristles are very similar to feathers, but these are just the digestive and respiratory organs, and the body is a calcareous tube. Worm "Christmas tree" homebody. He spends his whole life in a coral hole, where he once sucks, considering it the most suitable place for his existence.

The worm became the prototype of Pandora's plants.

Australian sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri)

The beautiful but deadly Australian sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri) is the world's most venomous jellyfish. Since 1880, 66 people have died from its heart-paralytic poison near the coast of Queensland; in the absence of medical care, the victims died within 1-5 minutes. One of the effective means of protection are women's tights. Lifeguards in Queensland now wear oversized pantyhose while surfing.

Interesting facts about marine animals

River dolphins are found in Brazil, China and India, but only the Amazonian dolphins are pink.

Only 6 species of lungfish have survived on earth, 4 of which, protopters, live in Africa. When the water in rivers and lakes dries up, protopteres are saved by the fact that they have lungs. They dig their nests in the soft muddy bottom and sleep in them until the start of the next rainy season, sometimes longer than a year. At the same time, they breathe air that enters through the top of the nest. And local fishermen, instead of fishing rods and nets, go fishing with hoes and shovels.

The longest animal on Earth is not a blue whale, but a lion's mane jellyfish. Its tentacles reach 37 meters in length.

The heart of a blue whale beats 9 times per minute and is about the size of an average car.

The largest blue whale in history was caught by Norwegian whalers in 1926. With a length of 34 m, the whale weighed 177 tons.

The length of the giant squid reaches 18 m. Whalers often observed deep scars from suckers on the bodies of sperm whales.

The noisiest creature in the ocean is the shrimp. The noise of a large flock of shrimp can "blind" the sonar of a submarine.

The whale does not start fountains, he exhales a jet of carbon dioxide wrapped in spray. The fat content of whale milk is 50%.

The largest mollusk - tridacna - lives in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Its shell can reach 2 m in diameter and 250 kg of weight.

Dallia is the most tenacious fish in the world. In fresh water bodies of Chukotka and Alaska, it survives by freezing into ice for several months.

The fish Abyssobrotula galatheae was found in the Puerto Rico trench at a depth of 8370 m. The pressure at such a depth exceeds 800 atmospheres, or 800 kg per 1 square centimeter.

Fish species such as salmon and trout do not exist. This is the collective name for more than three dozen species of fish of the salmon family.

The communication system of dolphins is so developed that each dolphin has its own name, to which it responds when relatives address it.

An octopus has two legs instead of eight. The other six tentacles are essentially hands. So it’s more correct to call the octopus “two-legged six-handed.” If an octopus loses a tentacle in a fight, it will grow a new one.

The predatory mollusk rapana was introduced into the Black Sea in 1947 from the Sea of ​​Japan and by now has eaten almost all oysters, mussels and scallops. Rapana could breed so much because its natural enemies, starfish, are absent in the Black Sea.

Whales that can dive to depths of hundreds of meters do not suffer from decompression sickness, because before diving they do not inhale, but exhale, almost completely emptying their lungs. The oxygen dissolved in the blood is enough for them to stay at a depth for 40 minutes or more.

The only cephalopod known to science that can live at depths of more than 1000 meters looks terrifying and is called accordingly - the hellish vampire squid.

When fish swim against the current, they expend less energy than swimming in calm water. This is due to the ability of fish to catch the emerging whirlpools, tacking with minimal muscle tension. This way of sailing can be compared to the movement of a sailing yacht against the wind.

Fish can suffer from seasickness, which manifests itself in the form of dizziness and disorientation.

Despite their creepy reputation, piranhas rarely attack humans. However, in September 1981, when a ship capsized near the city of Obidus on the Amazon. And, according to eyewitnesses, many of the 310 dead did not drown, but were torn apart by piranhas.

If an aquarium with goldfish is kept in the dark, the fish will turn white.

Sea turtles cry all the time. In this way, they get rid of excess salt in the body - their lacrimal glands perform the function of the kidneys.

If you cut a starfish into pieces, then over time, each of the parts will grow into a full-fledged star.

Coelacanth fish or coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was considered extinct tens of millions of years ago. When the locals told the scientists that such a fish exists and is often sold in the local market, the scientists only brushed it off with annoyance. Well, what to take from uneducated fishermen? What was their surprise when, in 1938, in the market in the Comoros, scientists saw ... coelacanth!

But imagine that pundits did not calm down and declared that this was an isolated case, the last one and generally not true. In 1997, the coelacanth was found again in a fish market in Indonesia!

Amazing unicellular organisms live in warm seas - radiolarians (Radiolaria), one of the oldest living creatures on earth. And they are amazing in that, being unicellular, they have ... a skeleton of silicon oxide or strontium salts. Their skeletons are so beautiful that they have inspired many artists.

But… how do they reproduce then? After all, unicellular organisms usually reproduce by division! Radiolarians have found an interesting way to reproduce - through holes in the skeleton they release embryos - amoeboid flagella, which then grow into an adult. But it has not yet been possible to investigate this in detail ...

The top of the food pyramid in nature is crowned by predators that eat more numerous prey. Biologists exploring one of the last untouched ecosystems in the world - Kingman Reef in Oceania, have discovered a stunning fact - 85% of the biomass at Kingman Reef is ... predators! Of these, 3/4 are various types of sharks. How is this possible? After all, if there are more lions than antelopes, then they will simply die out!

The answer is quite simple: the fecundity of fish, eaters of algae and plankton, is so high that there is always prey for so many predators. And what happens if you exterminate the predators? Alas, this has already happened on some coral reefs in neighboring Kiribati, where sharks were caught en masse. The number of non-predatory fish has exploded, the number of microbes in a cube of water has increased 10 times. And at first the corals began to die, and then the epidemic killed the fish as well. As a result, the biomass also explosively decreased by 4 times! Alas! So nature suffers from the stupidity of man ...

Did you know that in most species of cetaceans, newborn cubs are so weak that ... they cannot swim? That is why mothers with children are very vulnerable at first - mothers have to constantly support the cub with flippers so that it does not drown. Breastfeeding of a whale cub lasts on average up to one year, and the surface tension of mother's milk is 30 times stronger than that of water, so the stream of milk does not spread in water.

According to the World Register of Sea Creatures (WoRMS), there are currently 199,146 named sea creatures. There are probably at least 750,000 sea creatures still in existence (50% of the 1.5 million) and possibly 25 million sea creatures (50% of the 25 million).

Swordfish and marlin are the fastest fish in the ocean, reaching speeds of up to 121 km/h in bursts. And bluefin tuna can reach and maintain speeds of up to 90 km/h for a long time.

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on our planet (larger than known dinosaurs) and has a heart the size of a car.

The oarfish is the longest bony fish in the world. It has a snake-like body with an amazing red fin running its entire body length of 15.25 m, a horse-like muzzle and blue gills.

Many fish can change sex during their lifetime. Others, especially rare deep-sea fish, have both male and female reproductive organs.

A study of the deep sea community has discovered 898 species from more than 100 families and a dozen phyla in an area about half the size of a tennis field. More than half of these organisms were new to science.

The gray whale travels over 10,000 miles a year, which is the longest migration of any animal.

Interesting facts about sharks

Sharks attack about 50-75 people a year worldwide, of which 8-12 are fatal, according to data from the International Shark Attack Base (ISAF). Although shark attacks attract quite a bit of attention, they are much less than the number of people killed each year by elephants, bees, crocodiles, lightning and many other natural hazards. On the other hand, we kill about 20 million sharks a year as a result of fishing.

Of the 350 species of sharks, about 80% grow to less than 1.6 m and are not capable of harming humans, and are also rarely seen. Only 32 species have been recorded attacking humans, and another 36 species are considered potentially dangerous.

Almost any shark of 1.8m or more is potentially dangerous, but the three species most commonly attack humans are the great white shark, tiger shark, and bull shark. All three species are found throughout the world, reaching large sizes and feeding on large prey such as marine mammals and sea turtles. It is white sharks that most often attack swimmers, divers, surfers and boats than any other species. However, about 80% of shark attacks occur in the tropics and subtropics, where other types of sharks predominate, and white sharks are quite rare.

Sharks eat EVERYTHING. The wreckage of boats, car tires and even knightly armor were found in the stomachs of these predators.

The blunt shark, or bull shark, reaching 3.5 m in length and 300 kg in weight, can swim far into the rivers. They have been observed in the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area, in Lake Michigan, in the Ganges and the Amazon. The bull shark is very aggressive, there are cases of its attacks on people.

Sharks can reproduce by parthenogenesis, that is, without the participation of males. In 2007, a DNA study of the cub was carried out, which showed that only the mother's genes were present in it. Thus, it has been proven that sharks can breed "virtually".

Sharks are unable to pump water through their gills on their own, therefore, in order not to die from a lack of oxygen, they must constantly be in motion.

The largest fish on the planet is the whale shark. Its length reaches 12 m, and its weight is 14 tons. The smallest - Schindleria - weighs only 2 mg with a length of 11 mm. And the most prolific - moon fish - in one season is capable of sweeping 300 million eggs.

A 55 kg tuna was found in the stomach of a 330 kg mako shark, swallowed whole.

Tiger shark embryos fight each other in their mother's womb. Only one is born, having eaten all the others.

There are squids that fly

In addition to the well-known flying fish, there are also flying squids that live in the Pacific Ocean. But the way they fly is completely different. Fish use quick and strong tail strokes to jump out of the water, and then soar with the help of wide fins. While squids both in the water and above its surface move due to jet thrust, that is, in the direction opposite to the ejected water jet.

However, in terms of flight range, squids are much inferior: their maximum distance, according to observations, does not exceed 30 meters, while the flying fish record is 400 meters.