marine biology – Page 7

Giant Octopus- Monterrey Bay Aquarium

The Wobbegong shark is a dorsoventrally flattened fish. There are twelve species of Wobbegongs and they all have these little stylish fleshy tabs on their chins for camouflage; Wobbegong comes from an aboriginal name meaning “shaggy beard.” Because Wobbegongs are extremely confident in their camouflage, they cause no threat to divers. In fact, divers can swim up to one and it just sits there and doesn’t move, completely convinced that it can’t be seen. Unlike most sharks, which breathe through their mouth, the Wobbegong breathes through a pair of spiracles that are kind of like nostrils that don’t smell, they’re on the top of the head. This is because the mouth is down so low to the sand, if they were breathing through their mouth, they would just get a mouthful of sand. Yuck.

Green sea turtles (or Honu, as they are known in Hawai’ian) are often seen swimming and relaxing around the shallows in Oahu, Hawai’i

giffingsharks:

The Basking shark is the second largest shark in the world! This shark lives in cool, temperate waters where there’s a lot of plankton. It swims through the water with its big ol’ mouth wide open; water goes in through the mouth and back out through the gills, but the plankton are strained out by cone-like filters on the gills called “Gill Rakers.” Even though the Basking shark has a massive mouth, it only has a throat about as wide as a grapefruit. So these sharks cause no harm to humans, in fact, they only have teeny tiny teeth! They don’t really care for anything larger than plankton.