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Tool Use By Sea Otters
The sea otter, ''Enhydra lutris'', is a member of the Mustelidae that is fully aquatic. Sea otters are the smallest of the marine mammals, but they are also the most dexterous. Sea otters are known for their ability to use stones as anvils or hammers to facilitate access to hard-to-reach prey items. Furthermore, out of the thirteen currently known species of otters, at least 10 demonstrate stone handling behaviour, suggesting that otters may have a genetic predisposition to manipulate stones. Tool use behavior is more associated with geographic location than sub-species. Most behavioral research has been conducted on ''Enhydra lutris nereis'', the Californian otter, and some has been conducted on ''Enhydra lutris kenyoni'', the Alaska sea otter. Sea otters frequently use rocks as anvils to crack open prey, and they are also observed to rip open prey with their forepaws. While lying on their backs, otters will rip apart coral algae to find food among the debris. The frequency of to ...
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Sea Otteruses A Rock To Break A Shell Open 2
A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order sections of the oceanic sea (e.g. the Mediterranean Sea), or certain large, nearly landlocked bodies of water. The salinity of water bodies varies widely, being lower near the surface and the mouths of large rivers and higher in the depths of the ocean; however, the relative proportions of dissolved salts vary little across the oceans. The most abundant solid dissolved in seawater is sodium chloride. The water also contains salts of magnesium, calcium, potassium, and mercury, among other elements, some in minute concentrations. A wide variety of organisms, including bacteria, protists, algae, plants, fungus, fungi, and animals live in various marine habitats and Marine ecosystem, ecosystems throughout the seas. These range vertically from the ph ...
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Starfish
Starfish or sea stars are Star polygon, star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class (biology), class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to brittle star, ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to as brittle stars or basket stars. Starfish are also known as asteroids due to being in the class Asteroidea. About 1,900 species of starfish live on the seabed in all the world's oceans, from warm, tropics, tropical zones to frigid, polar regions of Earth, polar regions. They are found from the intertidal zone down to abyssal zone, abyssal depths, at below the surface. Starfish are marine invertebrates. They typically have a central disc and usually five arms, though some species have a larger number of arms. The aboral or upper surface may be smooth, granular or spiny, and is covered with overlapping plates. Many species are brightly coloured in various shades of red or orange, while others are blue, grey or brown. Starfish have tube fe ...
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Worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms); for the African giant earthworm, ''Microchaetus rappi''; and for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), ''Lineus longissimus''. Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitism, parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, ''Vermes'', used by Carl Linnaeus, Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word ''wikt:wyrm, wyrm''. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also use ...
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Kelp
Kelps are large brown algae or seaweeds that make up the order (biology), order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genus, genera. Despite its appearance and use of photosynthesis in chloroplasts, kelp is technically not a plant but a stramenopile (a group containing many protists). Kelp grow from stalks close together in kelp forest, very dense areas like forests under shallow temperate and Arctic oceans. They were previously thought to have appeared in the Miocene, 5 to 23 million years ago based on fossils from California. New fossils of kelp holdfasts from early Oligocene rocks in Washington State show that kelps were present in the northeastern Pacific Ocean by at least 32 million years ago. The organisms require nutrient-rich water with temperatures between . They are known for their high growth rate—the genera ''Macrocystis'' and ''Nereocystis'' can grow as fast as half a metre a day (that is, about 20 inches a day), ultimately reaching .Thomas, D. 2002. ''Seaweed ...
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Point Lobos
Point Lobos and the Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is a state park in California. Adjoining Point Lobos is "one of the richest marine habitats in California". The ocean habitat is protected by two marine protected areas, the Point Lobos State Marine Reserve and Point Lobos State Marine Conservation Area. The sea near Point Lobos is considered one of the best locations for scuba diving on the Monterey Peninsula and along the California coast. Point Lobos is just south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, United States, and at the north end of the Big Sur coast of the Pacific Ocean. Point Lobos features a number of hiking trails, many alongside the ocean, and a smaller number of beaches. The historic Whalers Cabin, built by Chinese fishermen and later used by Japanese and Portuguese fishermen, is now a museum. Point Lobos nearly became the site of a town. In 1896, the Carmelo Land and Coal Company subdivided the land into 1,000 lots and named the new town " Carmelito". Engine ...
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Crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropod anatomy), thorax. Their exoskeleton is often Sclerotization, thickened and hard. They generally have Arthropod leg, five pairs of legs, and they have "Pincers (tool), pincers" or "claws" on the ends of the frontmost pair, scientifically termed the ''chelae''. They are present in all the world's oceans, Freshwater crab, in freshwater, and Terrestrial crab, on land, often hiding themselves in small crevices or burrowing into sediment. Crabs are omnivores, feeding on a variety of food, including a significant proportion of Algae eater, algae, as well as Detritivore, detritus and other invertebrates. Crab meat, Crabs are widely consumed by humans as food, with over 1.5 million tonnes Crab fisheries, caught annually. True crabs first appeared ...
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Whiskers
Whiskers, also known as vibrissae (; vibrissa; ) are a type of stiff, functional hair used by most therian mammals to sense their environment. These hairs are finely specialised for this purpose, whereas other types of hair are coarser as tactile sensors. Although whiskers are specifically those found around the face, vibrissae are known to grow in clusters at various places around the body. Most mammals have them, including all non-human primates and especially nocturnal mammals. Monotremes, however, lack them. Whiskers are sensitive tactile hairs that aid navigation, locomotion, exploration, hunting, social touch and perform other functions. This article is primarily about the specialised sensing hairs of mammals, but some birds, fish, insects, crustaceans and other arthropods are known to have similar structures also used to sense the environment. Etymology Vibrissae (from Latin 'to vibrate') from the characteristic motion seen in a small rodent that is otherwise sitti ...
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Blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of Blood vessel, vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians. It was present in many marine reptiles, such as Ichthyosauria, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Description Lipid-rich, collagen fiber-laced blubber comprises the Subcutaneous tissue, hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages. It is strongly attached to the musculature and skeleton by highly organized, fan-shaped networks of tendons and ligaments, can comprise up to 50 per cent of the body mass of some marine mammals during some points in their lives, and can range from thick in dolphins and smaller whales, to more than thick in some bigger whales, such as Right whale, right and bowhead whales. However, this is not indicative of larger whales' ability to retain heat better, as the thickness of a whale's blubber does not significantly affect heat loss. More indicative of a whale's ability to retain heat is the wat ...
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Buoyancy
Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is the force exerted by a fluid opposing the weight of a partially or fully immersed object (which may be also be a parcel of fluid). In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus, the pressure at the bottom of a column of fluid is greater than at the top of the column. Similarly, the pressure at the bottom of an object submerged in a fluid is greater than at the top of the object. The pressure difference results in a net upward force on the object. The magnitude of the force is proportional to the pressure difference, and (as explained by Archimedes' principle) is equivalent to the weight of the fluid that would otherwise occupy the submerged volume of the object, i.e. the Displacement (fluid), displaced fluid. For this reason, an object with average density greater than the surrounding fluid tends to sink because its weight is greater than the weight of the fluid it displaces. If the objec ...
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Organ (anatomy)
In a multicellular organism, an organ is a collection of Tissue (biology), tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the biological organization, hierarchy of life, an organ lies between Tissue (biology), tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type Cell (biology), cells to act together in a function. Tissues of different types combine to form an organ which has a specific function. The Gastrointestinal tract, intestinal wall for example is formed by epithelial tissue and smooth muscle tissue. Two or more organs working together in the execution of a specific body function form an organ system, also called a biological system or body system. An organ's tissues can be broadly categorized as parenchyma, the functional tissue, and stroma (tissue), stroma, the structural tissue with supportive, connective, or ancillary functions. For example, the gland's tissue that makes the hormones is the parenchyma, whereas the stroma includes the nerve t ...
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