The Longlure Frogfish can be found in the tropical western part of the Atlantic Ocean next to sea sponges. It is disbursed from Bermuda and the Bahamas to the coasts of the central and south America. It is referred to as a frogfish because of its similar characteristics compared to those of a frog. The Frogfish has really thick skin and highly modified scales called dermal spicules. It is round and short, generally growing up to 11cm. Since one of their main purposes is to prey for food, they rarely use their fins to swim and instead, they have fins that act as feet which help them walk across the ocean. It has very small eyes and a large mouth pointing up which helps them eat their prey. Their big mouth allows them to eat big animals. Usually, …show more content…
They have a lure called an elongated illicit on one of its dorsal spines. They use this lure just like a fisherman uses a fishing pole to catch food. The illicit is modified into a long rod with a lure at the end which looks like a small fish or shrimp. It uses its color and black spots to seemingly camouflage from potential prey next a sponge of similar color. It then waits there until it sees a fish swimming by. As soon as it spots its next victim its plan of attack commences. It first wiggles its lure to attract the fish towards it; when the fish is close enough, it quickly swallow it. All of this happens it a matter of 1/6th of a second. If they are not able to catch prey by their initial location they will relocate until they find a good amount of food. A possible hypothesis for why it developed this elongated illicit is because it is not a fast swimmer and therefore, it was not able to keep up with the other fish it wanted to consume. Its color also makes it really visible when it is not next to a sponge; so if it did not have the elongated illicit it would have to swim or walk around the ocean to find prey, but it was never able to catch any prey because of it color and size. The elongated illicit allows it to catch prey by staying mobilized and it does not need to swim around to find prey. Another unique trait is that their eggs are
Because of its size and abundance, T. californicus is commonly regarded as the insect of the sea. This creature is generally very small, from 1-3 mm in size as adults. They are cylindrically shaped, and have a segmented body (head, thorax, abdomen) though no noticeable division between body regions (Powlik 1966). Each segment of the body has a pair of legs. They use their 'legs' to propel themselves through the water in short rapid jerks. They have 2 pairs of long feathered antennae, a chitin us exoskeleton and a single eye in the middle of their head, this simple eye can only differentiate between light and dark.
... mm long and 3–7 mm wide. After the fish's tongue is destroyed, the parasite attaches itself to the stub of the old tongue, and becomes the fish's new tongue.
The normal weight of M. salmoides is one kilogram; however, certain largemouth basses have gotten weights of over ten kilograms. Males usually do not surpass 40 cm, while females can reach up to 56 cm in length. The largemouth bass has a large, slightly sloping mouth. Its body is slender to robust, slightly compressed laterally, and oval in cross section. The corner of the mouth extends past the eye, hence its common name. (Bailey, et al., 2004; Boschung, et al., 2004) Immature Micropterus salmoides feed on zooplankton and marine insects. As they grow their diet shifts to crayfish
The mudpuppy to me is one of my favorite animals that live under water. The mudpuppy is related to amphibians. One thing that makes the mudpuppy different is that their gills never go away like other amphibians gills do. There gills kind of look like bushes underwater just swaying around. According to “National Geographic” they say that, “mudpuppies are easily distinguishable by their bushy, red external gills, which they grow as larva and never lose. They have flat heads, wide tails, stubby les, and feet with four distinct toes. Their bodies are gray or brownish-gray with blue- black spots” (1). They have almost all the same characteristics as salamanders do: like toes and the patterns on their bodies. According to the book “A Natural History of Amphibians” the authors Robert C. Stebbins and Nathan W. Cohen talk about the skin of amphibians and they said,
A. ocellaris grows up to 11 cm in length. Its bright orange colouration with three vertical white bars that are separated from the orange colour by thin black outlines is a key feature in the identification of the species. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism, whereas females are larger than males. Found in the eastern part of Indian Ocean and West Pacific, the species inhabits sea anemones on the outer slopes of coral reefs. A. ocellaris is known to live in three species of sea anemone: Hetera...
Like other rays of the Urolophidae family, the yellow stingray has an almost round body, or disc body. It has a circular shaped pectoral fin and a short snout. The eyes are behind the snout. Yellow stingrays do not have a dorsal fin. It has a caudal fin which is around the tip of its tail. They have a long flat tail spine located just behind caudal fin. This tail spine is used as a poisonous barb, which is used only when needed in self-defense. They move by rippling their bodies in waves or by flapping their sides like wings allowing them to glide. The yellow stingray is considered to be part of the elasmobranch class which is made up of rays, sharks and skates that all have a skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone. Due to the fact that the stingray is composed of cartilage, it is classified as an invertebrate. (Kennedy, 2008) Because they are elasmobranchs, these rays do not have a swim bladder which is a gas-filled sac found in the body of many bony fishes and is used to maintain and control their buoyancy. Instead, elasmobranchs maintain buoyancy with oil that they store in their livers. (Peters, 2008) The majority of yellow rays have either a pattern of dark green or brown on a pale background, or a pattern of white, yellow or golden spots on a dark green or brown background on the dorsal side. The bottom side of the disc is yellowish or brow...
Cane Toads have had a huge impact upon Western Australian food webs. They have poison glands behind their eyes, which they have used to eliminate their predators, much of which is Australian native fauna. The Quoll is the most affected animal by the Cane Toads, and have become, ‘critically endangered’, according to the Northern Territory Legislation. This has left a large dent upon WA’s natural food web.
who they compete with for food and space. Main preys of this species are small fish and
Viperfish has its own scientific name, Chauliodus Sloani. It lives in the darkest depth of the sea in the range between 250 to 5000 feet in the daytime and shallower depths at night, primarily in tropical and temperate waters. Viperfish only grows up to 60 centimetres . However, they possess extremely over-grown teeth which is very useful for hunting prey. This fierce creature has developed a specialize hunting technique that is perfect for deep ocean floor where there is no light. This fish generates its own light and uses it to attract prey through a process known as bioluminescence . Viperfish has several light-generating-organs along the side of its body called the photophores. They also have a long spine in their back with another photophores at the end of it. They mainly use the photophores to communicate with other members of the species such as when they are attracting mate .
In the northern leopard frog, there has been experiments conducted regarding eye retraction when swallowing. It has long been held as an assumption that eye retraction may help the frog in pushing the food through the digestive tract. From observing northern leopard frogs from eating 1.5cm long crickets, it shows a high amount of variability as both the eyes and muscular area of the throat are seemed to have make physical contact with the food item. (e.g. Dickerson, 1906 Regal and Gans, 1976 Nishikawa, 2000 Schwenk). In order to conduct this experiment, male northern leopard frogs that have a snout length of 5.5cm to 7.0cm were acquired through commercial purposes. (Scherber, 1782). They were housed according to specific temperature specifications
The underwater flatfish is bilateral.Bilateral is you can divide in half and is the same on both sides. The underwater flatfish is a long curved oval shape worm.It has a distinctive rich pattern of stripes in black,brown,and rose gold with tiny white dots.The length of the worm is 2-6 cm long.
The red-eyed tree frog has a small body and bilateral symmetry. The body is green with red eyes, webbed orange feet, and blue and yellow legs. The frogs typically weigh between six and fifteen grams. They range in size from 51 to 76 millimeters in length.
The Giant Squid is, as the name describes, a massive squid, of the genus architeuthis, which can grow up to 43 feet long, and weigh more than half a ton. Some have even reported squids that are 60 or more feet long, although squids this size have yet to be confirmed by science. Like other squids, it has ten arms, eight of which are used to swim, and two of which are used to gather food, and are generally considerably longer than the ones used to swim. As well, it has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. It moves by both using its arms to swim and a funnel to channel and pump water to move swiftly through the ocean water. It uses a sharp beak to devour its prey, which consists of mainly “deep-sea fishes, such as orange ruffie, and hokie” [1].
Clownfishes are territorial. They defend their host and a limited area around it. In the wild, the clownfishes can be found associating with 10 different species of sea anemones. When threatened by a predator, clownfishes dive among the tentacles of their host, often temporarily vanishing from sight among the anemone's appendages. When the threat is gone, the fish will reemerge. The host specificity exhibited be clownfishess varies from one species to the next. for example, the maroon clownfish (Premnas biaculeatus) is almost always found associating with the bubble tip sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) (Michael, 2008).
A very unique species is the wood frog. These frogs are well adapted to cold conditions by accepting the freezing of their blood and other tissues in their body and still can survive, but only if less than 65% of their body water does not freeze up. Generally being various shades of brown, the wood frog can reach lengths up to 7 centimeters, with females being larger than the males, with light or pale colored belly. Adults are generally variations of brown and normally prey on flies or beetles. Juveniles commonly feed on algae or plant materials and transform to a mature adult in approximately 45 days. The call of the male wood frog is generally seen as the signal that winter is now over and many wood frogs immerge from hibernation to start breeding.