Ocean Creature Feature

STARFISH

Starfish may well be the most unusual well-known creature. They have no front or back: they can move in any direction without turning. Rather than using muscles to move their hundreds of tiny legs, starfish use a complex hydraulic system to move around or cling to rocks. The intake valve for this system is generally located on the top of the Starfish, just off center, as can be seen clearly on the Leather Star (Dermasterias imbricata) to the right.

If you've ever tried to pry a Starfish off a rock, you know how effective its hydraulic system really is.

• Of course, starfish don't have to make themselves symmetrical. They can rearrange their arms any way they please in order to wedge themselves into a small nook in the rocks -- as you can see in this almost human-looking Knobby Star (Pisaster giganteus) to the right.
• Starfish are usually fairly sluggish, have five or six arms and get pretty stiff when you try to pick them up. The Sunflower Star (Pycnopodia helianthoides, below) breaks all of these stereotypes. It typically has around 20 arms, moves -- practically flows -- quite gracefully across the surface, and is soft (mushy?) to the touch.
  

Just for the record, the Starfish at the top of the page are: Ochre Star (Pisaster ochraceous), Bat Star (Patiria miniata), and Six-rayed Star (Leptasterias hexactis) respectively, from left to right. The mottled Starfish above right is also a Bat Star.

STINGRAYS

Clownfish

Clownfish belong to a group of small, brightly colored fish called damselfish. These inshore reef dwellers have developed a curious and potentially deadly relationship with the sea anemone.

The Clown fish grows to be about 2 to 5 inches (5 to 13 cm) long.

• The Clown fish lives on the sea floor amid anemone tentacles. It inhabits the warm waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
•  This fish eat the anemone's leftovers. It waits until the anemone paralyzes and eats a fish, then helps itself to bits that the anemone leaves uneaten. It also eats dead anemone tentacles and plankton.

Pufferfish

The Pufferfish is also known as the blowfish, fugu, swellfish, and globefish. It is called the pufferfish because when it is threatened, it puffs up to about twice its normal size by gulping water. In this engorged state, the pufferfish can swim at only about half its normal speed.

There are about 100 species of pufferfish. Most pufferfish are found in sub-tropical and tropical marine waters (including coral reefs) in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Some puffers live in brackish and fresh water.

Poison: Many parts of the blowfish (including the liver, muscles, skin, and ovaries) contain an extremely strong, paralyzing poison called tetrodoxin. This poison is about a thousand times deadlier than cyanide. There is no known antidote for this poison.

Fugu (torafugu or fugu rubripes, Japanese pufferfish) is eaten in Japan, but is only cooked by specially-trained chefs who can minimize the amount of poison. Even so, many Japanese diners have died from eating this poisonous delicacy.

Diet: Pufferfish are carnivores (meat-eaters). They eat corals, sponges, sea urchins, other echinoderms, and small crustaceans. Pufferfish crush and grind up their prey with their heavy, fused teeth.

Anatomy: Pufferfish have a small mouth, a tube-shaped body (when not engorged) and relatively small fins. When puffed up, they are almost spherical.

Pufferfish range in size from just a few inches long to almost 2 feet long. A few species of pufferfish have spines on their body (modified scales), but many do not. The skin of puffers is very elastic (it can stretch very well).

SEAHORSE

Anatomy: Seahorses have a long, horse-like head (hence their name) and a curled tail. Seahorses range in size from under a centimeter long (Pygmy Seahorses) to about 1 foot (30 cm) long.

Reproduction: The female seahorse produces eggs, but they are held inside the male's body until they hatch; he is pregnant for about 40 to 50 days. The sea horse is the only animal in which the father is pregnant.

Sea Turtle

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

• Some Olive Ridley sea turtles actually are olive green in color , however, others are black or grayish-brown. The turtle's protective shell is heart-shaped or round, and in adults is usually between 24 and 30 inches long. The Olive Ridley, along with the Kemp's ridley, are the smallest of the sea turtles, and the Olive Ridley usually weighs "only" around 100 pounds. Both kinds of ridleys are unusual because they makes nests every year, while other sea turtles have seasons where they don't breed.
• Olive Rdley turtle moms do something really unusual and pretty spectacular – many, many, many of them go to specific beaches at the same time to make their nests and lay eggs! These communal nesting beaches are called "arribadas". In English, arribada translates to "arrival by sea" which is exactly what the turtle moms do! There are several arribada beaches along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. Four arribada sites have been reported along Indian Ocean coastal areas an in the Atlantic small arribadas have been reported from one area.

• Females holding between 100 and 110 eggs can wait weeks for the right time to come ashore and nest. It is hard to say what conditions are right for the arribada, it could be moon or tide phases, climate or weather conditions, but the continued occurrences of several large arribadas has helped make the Olive Ridley the sea turtle with the greatest population.  Imagine a quiet night on the beach with the only light coming from the moon above. Slowly, multitudes of turtles begin to emerge from the water, climbing the beach. They eventually stop and begin digging in the sand. They burrow in for a bit, leaving their eggs and then using their flippers shovel the sand back into the hole they just dug, over their eggs. Then, more slowly than before, they move back down the beach, into the sea and then they are gone!

• After that, the turtle mom needs a tropical vacation – luckily that's where she and other Olive Ridleys live! The Olive Ridleys are joined in their tropical habitat by the leatherback sea turtles. Both live in tropical regions of Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, and both nest primarily on Pacific shores of the American tropics and in the Guianas. Recent studies show that olive ridleys reside in the eastern Pacific Ocean during the non-reproductive portion of its life cycle. Olive Ridleys munch on crabs, shrimp, rock lobsters and jellyfish.              

Blue Tang

Blue Tangs are a species of surgeonfish. Surgeonfish have a sharp spine at the base of their tails. This spine is as sharp as a knife, and can be used to attack other fish. Blue Tangs eat algae, and are usually seen in the daytime browsing and poking at the reef for tidbits of food. Young Blue Tangs are very territorial, and may use their sharp spines to chase away other Blue Tangs to protect their 'crop' of algae. The Blue Tangs' spines are bright yellow. You can see the yellow spine on the Blue Tang in this photo.

Blue Tangs can change color. Juvenile Blue Tangs are actually bright yellow all over. As they get older, they gradually turn blue. Adolescent Blue Tangs are a light blue. Old Blue Tangs are a very dark blue. Old Blue Tangs also lose their aggressiveness. Although younger Blue Tangs are loners, old Blue Tangs are often seen in large schools.

Blue Tangs take shelter in the reef at night. They will sleep alone in a hole or crevice in the reef.  At night, adult Blue Tangs change color by showing a pattern of blue and white vertical bars.

Lionfish

This brightly colored fish is usually found in coral reefs, especially in shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific region, hovering in caves or near crevices. 

Lion-fish have venomous fin spines that can produce painful puncture wounds. Fatalities, however, are rare. The fish have elongated dorsal fin spines and enlarged pectoral fins, and each species has a particular pattern of zebralike stripes.

JELLYFISH

Jellyfish such as this lion's mane jellyfish roam the North Atlantic feeding on the tiny creatures that make up the zooplankton. To capture prey, jellyfish have a net of tentacles that contain poisonous, stinging cells. When the tentacles brush against prey, thousands of tiny stinging cells explode, launching barbed stingers and poison into the victim.

There are many types of jellyfish. The smallest jellyfish are just a few inches across. The largest jellyfish is the lion's mane (Cyanea capillata), whose body can be over 3 feet (1 m) across, with much longer tentacles. Some jellyfish glow in the dark (this is called phosphorescence). Some of the deadliest jellies include the box jelly  and the tiny, two-cm-across Irukandji jelly ; the venomous sting of these jellyfish can kill a person.

Many animals eat jellyfish, including sea turtles and some fish (including the sun fish).

Octopus

 The word octopus means "eight feet." Octopuses are solitary, eight-armed animals that live on the ocean floor. There are over 100 different species of octopuses. The Giant Octopus is the biggest octopus. This huge mollusk is up to 23 ft (7 m) from arm tip to arm tip, weighing up to 400 pounds (182 kg). The smallest is the Californian octopus, which is only 3/8 inch (1 cm) long.

An octopus has a soft body and eight arms. Each arm has two rows of suction cups. If it loses an arm, it will eventually regrow another arm. It has blue blood. An octopus has an eye on each side of its head and has very good eyesight. An octopus cannot hear.

Octopuses eat small crabs and scallops, plus some snails, fish, turtles, crustaceans (like shrimp), and other octopuses. They catch prey with their arms, then kill it by biting it with their tough beak, paralyzing the prey with a nerve poison, and softening the flesh. They then suck out the flesh. Octopuses hunt mostly at night. Only the Australian Blue-ringed octopus has a poison strong enough to kill a person.

 Octopuses live in dens, spaces under rocks, crevices on the sea floor, or holes they dig under large rocks. Octopuses pile rocks to block the front of their den. The den protects them from predators (like moray eels) and provides a place to lay eggs and care for them (a mother octopus doesn't eat during the entire 1 to 2 months she is caring for her eggs). In order to escape predators, octopuses can squirt black ink into the water, allowing the octopus to escape. Another defense that octopuses have is changing their skin color to blend into the background, camouflaging themselves. The octopus swims by spewing water from its body, a type of jet propulsion.

Bottlenose Dolphin

Bottlenose Dolphins have stream-lined bodies and a rounded head with a distinctive beak. They have a tall, falcate (sickle-shaped) dorsal fin and broad, slightly pointed flippers.

Bottlenose dolphins are hunters that fish mostly at the surface of the water, eating mostly fish  and squid . They have many pairs of sharp, pointed teeth distributed in both the upper and lower jaws.

Some sharks (including tiger sharks, dusky sharks and bull sharks) and orcas will prey upon dolphins. Dolphins are also often trapped in people's fishing nets.

Bottlenose dolphins live in small pods of up to 12 whales; they are very social animals. Often, many pods group together to form congregations of hundreds of dolphins.

Dolphins can dive down to more than 1,000 feet (300 m) and can jump up to 20 feet (6 m) out of the water.

A bow rider is a dolphin that hitches a rides in the bow wave in front of a ship. The dolphin surfs using the pressure created in front of a moving ship.


 Dolphins breathe air at the surface of the water through a single blowhole located near the top of the head. They need to breathe about every 2 minutes, but can hold their breath for several minutes. Their blow is a single, explosive cloud.


Dolphins are very fast swimmers.


Bottlenose dolphins live near the coast and inshore waters from northern Cape Hatteras to southern Florida and westward through the Gulf of Mexico. Another population lives near the continental shelf off New Jersey. Bottlenose dolphins live in different areas during the different parts of their life cycle, for example, breeding and giving birth.


Bottlenose dolphins have a maximum life span of about 25 years.

Bottlenose dolphins are in no danger as their numbers are abundant.

Orcas

Orcas are efficient hunters who find their prey at the surface of the water, eating fish, squid, sharks, birds, seals, sea turtles, octopi, and even other whales.

Like other toothed whales, orcas use echolocation, a way of sensing in which they emit high-pitched clicks and sense them as they bounce back off objects (like prey).

Like other whales, orcas swim by moving their tail (called flukes) up and down. Fish swim by moving their tail left and right.

Tiger Shark

The tiger shark has tiger-like markings on a dark back with an off-white underbelly. Pups have spotted markings that grow together to form stripes that fade with maturity. It has a large, thick-body with a blunt snout. The first dorsal fin is much longer than the second. The caudal fin is long and pointed. There is a dermal ridge along the back between the 2 dorsal fins. Color-Adult: gray-brown on top, off-white belly, young shark: dark stripes on the back.

Tiger sharks have a special gill slit (a spiracle) behind the eyes that provides oxygen flow directly to the eyes and brain. It also has a very good sense of smell, electroreceptors sensitive to electric currents in the water, and keen eyesight.


 Tiger shark teeth are very serrated (saw-edged), razor-sharp, and curved. The teeth are the same in upper and lower jaws

The teeth are located in rows which rotate into use as needed. The first two rows are used in obtaining prey, the other rows rotate into place as they are needed. As teeth are lost, broken, or worn down, they are replaced by new teeth that rotate into place.

Tiger sharks grow up to 20 feet (6 m). On average they are about 10 feet (3 m) long.

Tiger sharks will eat fish, turtles, crabs, clams, mammals, sea birds, reptiles, other sharks, and just about anything else that they can catch alive.

The tiger shark does occasionally attack people and is greatly feared, but people are not sought out by sharks.

Tiger sharks go from the surface to 1,200 feet (340 m). They swim in tropical waters worldwide and in some temperate seas. They inhabit both the shoreline and open waters, ranging perhaps up to 500 miles.

Tiger sharks are found worldwide in warm seas (tropical and subtropical).


Tiger sharks swim at an average speed of 2.4 mph. They can swim in fast bursts, but can only sustain these high speeds for a few seconds..

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