Portal:Marine life
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Marine life is concerned with the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the ocean. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy. For this reason marine life encompasses not only organisms that can only live in a marine environment, but also those that lives revolve around the sea.
At a fundamental level, marine life helps determine the very nature of our planet. Marine organisms produce much of the oxygen we breathe and probably help regulate the earth's climate. Shorelines are in part shaped and protected by marine life, and some marine organisms even help create new land.
Marine biology covers a great deal, from the microscopic, including plankton and phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02 micrometers and are both hugely important as the primary producers of the sea, to the huge cetaceans (whales) which reach up to a reported 33 meters (109 feet) in length.
Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. They are absent from the North Atlantic, although fossil remains show they once occurred there too. Albatrosses are amongst the largest of flying birds, and the great albatrosses (genus Diomedea) have the largest wingspans of any extant birds. The albatrosses are usually regarded as falling into four genera, but there is disagreement over the number of species.
Albatrosses are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. They feed on squid, fish and krill by either scavenging, surface seizing or diving. Albatrosses are colonial, nesting for the most part on remote oceanic islands, often with several species nesting together. Pair bonds between males and females form over several years, with the use of ritualised dances, and will last for the life of the pair. A breeding season can take over a year from laying to fledging, with a single egg laid in each breeding attempt.
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Rachel Louise Carson (27 May 1907 – 14 April 1964) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-born zoologist and marine biologist whose landmark book, Silent Spring, is often credited with having launched the global environmental movement. Silent Spring had an immense effect in the United States, where it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy.
Rachel Carson was born in 1907 on a small family farm near Springdale. As a child, she spent many hours learning about ponds, fields, and forests from her mother. She originally went to school to study English and creative writing, but switched her major to marine biology. Her talent for writing would help her in her new field, as she resolved to "make animals in the woods or waters, where they live, as alive to others as they are to me". She graduated from the Pennsylvania College for Women, today known as Chatham College, in 1929 with magna cum laude honors. Despite financial difficulties, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University, earning a master's degree in zoology in 1932.
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- Triggerfishes are the brightly coloured fishes of the family Balistidae.
- Marked by lines and spots, they inhabit warm coastal waters of the Atlantic, Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific.
- Marbled hatchetfish are the only known fish that can actually fly by jumping into the air and moving their fins.
- The sea otter often keeps a stone tool in its armpit pouch.
- Some cichlid fish, crocodiles and frogs keep their eggs or young in their mouths or stomachs.
- The Horseshoe crab has blue, copper based blood.
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Cuttlefish are marine animals of the order Sepiida belonging to the Cephalopoda class (which also include squids, octopuses and nautilus). Although the name suggests it, cuttlefish are not fish, but molluscs.
Cuttlefish have an internal shell, large eyes, and eight arms and two tentacles furnished with denticulated suckers, by means of which they secure their prey.
The Wikiproject associated with this portal is the Marine Life WikiProject
Other WikiProjects include:
Major Fields of Marine Biology: Marine Biology - Ecology - Zoology - Animal Taxonomy
Specific Fields of Marine Biology: Herpetology - Ichthyology - Planktology - Ornithology
Biologists: Zoologists - Algologists - Malacologists - Conchologists - Biologists - Marine Biologists - Anatomists - Botanists - Ecologists - Ichthyologists
Organisms:
Plants: Algae - Brown Algae - Green Algae - Red Algae - Sea Vegetables -
Invertebrates: Cnidarians - Echinoderms - Molluscs - Bivalves - Cephalopods - Gastropods
Fish: Fish - Bony Fish - Lobe-finned Fish - Ray-finned Fish - Cartilagenous Fishes - Electric Fish - Fish Diseases - Rays - Sharks - Extinct Fish - Fictional Fish - Fisheries Science - Fishing - Fishkeeping - Live-bearing Fish
Reptiles and Amphibians: Marine Reptiles - Sea Turtles - Mosasaurs - Sauropterygia
Mammals: Marine Mammals - Cetaceans - Pinnipeds - Sirenians
Miscellaneous: Aquaria - Oceanaria - Vertebrates Without Jaws - Endangered Species - Aquatic Biomes - Ecozones - Aquatic Organisms - Cyanobacteria - Dinoflaggellates
