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4 Octopus. Though many octopus prefer sandy or rocky bottoms and seagrass meadows, a few species make coral reefs home. The most widespread is the common octopus, whose range extends from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean. In Pacific reefs, the day octopus reigns supreme.
Woods Hole, Mass. -- Tagging marine animals with sensors to track and study their movements can provide researchers with important environmental and behavioral information, including energy usage, habitat changes, and migration patterns. But existing techniques to attach sensors currently largely rely on invasive physical anchors, suction cups ...
Gobies and Shrimp. Small fish called gobies and certain species of pistol shrimp are nearly inseparable. As youngsters, they form a relationship that lasts until adulthood, foraging for food and living together in burrows in the seafloor. The pistol shrimp has poor vision, making it vulnerable to predators when out foraging.
The discovery of life at vents and seeps revolutionized understanding of how and where life can exist on Earth. The organisms that thrive at deep-sea vents and seeps have to survive freezing cold, perpetual darkness, high-pressure, and toxic chemicals. For this reason, they are often called extremophiles for the extreme nature of their living ...
The region extending from 6,000 to 11,000 meters is called the hadal, or hadalpelagic, zone after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. This zone occurs only in trenches; combined across all oceans, they make up an area about the size of Australia. The hadal zone is characterized by extreme depth and pressure, temperatures that hover just ...
Reef fishes (fishes indicates multiple species; fish is used for many individuals of the same type) include any species that spend time on the reef. Some may be relatively sedentary, spending their adult lives on a small part of the reef. Clownfish, for example, remain in close proximity to the anemones where they make their homes in a ...
Marine protected area (MPA) refers to any part of the ocean that receives some level of protection under international, federal, state, local, or tribal law. There are currently more than 5,000 MPAs worldwide, but this number only protects about one percent of the global ocean. More than 40 percent of U.S. marine waters are currently divided ...
Individuals grow to an average of 15 feet (4.6 meters) in length, though specimens exceeding 20 feet (6 meters) and weighing up to 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms) have been recorded. No one has ever reliably observed white sharks mating. Like many sharks, white sharks are born live and can swim immediately. An individual white shark might lose ...
An aquatic animal, such as a mollusk or crustacean, that has a shell or shell-like exoskeleton. 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1050. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a 501 (c) (3) organization. We are proud to be recognized as a financially accountable and transparent, 4-star charity organization by Charity Navigator.
Marine worms, sea cucumbers, sea stars and many types of phytoplankton also emit light. Bioluminescence involves a chemical reaction inside the animal’s cells. For some animals, those cells are located in a special light organ called a photophore that can look like a spotlight. Other organisms take on a more general glow.