Girella Nigricans
''Girella nigricans'', commonly known as the opaleye or rudderfish, is a species of sea chub found in the Eastern Pacific, from California to southern Baja California. A rarely documented isolated population also exists in the Gulf of California, which might be genetically different from the rest of the species. They are commonly found in shallow waters and intertidal zones, usually over rocks and kelp beds, at depths of . They feed primarily on algae, but will occasionally consume sessile invertebrates (including crustaceans, worms, and molluscs). They are considered commercially important game fish. The body of ''Girella nigricans'' is laterally compressed and oval in shape. The snout is blunt and short, with a thick-lipped small mouth located at the front. The species is dentally polymorphic, with some juveniles transitioning from tricuspid teeth to simple teeth. The fins are all relatively short and rounded to blunt in shape. The dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birch Aquarium
Birch Aquarium at Scripps (sometimes referred to as Scripps Aquarium or Birch Aquarium) is an aquarium and the public outreach center for Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Birch Aquarium at Scripps has an annual attendance of more than 439,000, including more than 40,000 school children, and features more than 3,000 animals representing 380 species. The hilltop site provides views of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus and the Pacific Ocean. The mission of the aquarium reads: "At Birch Aquarium at Scripps, we connect understanding to protecting our ocean planet". History The aquarium was established in 1903 after the Marine Biological Association of San Diego was created to conduct marine research in the local waters of the Pacific Ocean. (Its name was later changed to Scripps Institution of Oceanography to honor supporters Ellen Browning Scripps and E.W. Scripps, part of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sessility (zoology)
Sessility is the biological property of an organism describing its lack of a means of self-locomotion. Sessile organisms for which natural ''motility'' is absent are normally immobile. This is distinct from the botanical concept of sessility, which refers to an organism or biological structure attached directly by its base without a stalk. Sessile organisms can move via external forces (such as water currents), but are usually permanently attached to something. Organisms such as corals lay down their own substrate from which they grow. Other sessile organisms grow from a solid such as a rock, dead tree trunk, or a man-made object such as a buoy or ship's hull. Mobility Sessile animals typically have a motile phase in their development. Sponges have a motile larval stage and become sessile at maturity. Conversely, many jellyfish develop as sessile polyps early in their life cycle. In the case of the cochineal, it is in the nymph stage (also called the crawler stage) that the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Girella
''Girella'' is a genus of sea chubs mostly native to the Pacific Ocean with a smaller presence in the Atlantic oceans. Species There are currently 18 recognized species in this genus: * '' Girella albostriata'' Steindachner, 1898 * ''Girella cyanea'' W. J. Macleay, 1881 (Blue drummer) * ''Girella elevata'' W. J. Macleay, 1881 (Black drummer, rock blackfish) * '' Girella feliciana'' H. W. Clark, 1938 * ''Girella fimbriata'' (McCulloch, 1920) (Caramel drummer) * '' Girella freminvillii'' (Valenciennes, 1846) * ''Girella laevifrons'' ( Tschudi, 1846) * ''Girella leonina'' ( J. Richardson, 1846) (Kuromejina) * ''Girella mezina'' D. S. Jordan & Starks, 1907 (Okinamejina) * ''Girella nebulosa'' Kendall & Radcliffe, 1912 (Rapanui nibbler) * ''Girella nigricans'' ( Ayres, 1860) (Opaleye) * ''Girella punctata'' J. E. Gray, 1835 (Mejina) (Blackeye seabream) * ''Girella simplicidens'' R. C. Osburn & Nichols, 1916 (Gulf opal eye) * ''Girella stuebeli'' Troschel, 1866 * ''Girella teph ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Caudal Fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as seen in sharks. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the spine and are supported only by muscles. Their principal function is to help the fish swim. Fins located in different places on the fish serve different purposes such as moving forward, turning, keeping an upright position or stopping. Most fish use fins when swimming, flying fish use pectoral fins for gliding, and frogfish use them for crawling. Fins can also be used for other purposes; male sharks and mosquitofish use a modified fin to deliver sperm, thresher sharks use their caudal fin to stun prey, reef stonefish have spines in their dorsal fins that inject venom, anglerfish use the first spine of their dorsal fin like a fishing rod to lu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dorsal Fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through convergent evolution they have independently evolved external superficial fish-like body plans adapted to their marine environments, including most numerously fish, but also mammals such as cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), and even extinct ancient marine reptiles such as various known species of ichthyosaurs. Most species have only one dorsal fin, but some have two or three. Wildlife biologists often use the distinctive nicks and wear patterns which develop on the dorsal fins of large cetaceans to identify individuals in the field. The bony or cartilaginous bones that support the base of the dorsal fin in fish are called ''pterygiophores''. Functions The main purpose of the dorsal fin is to stabilize the animal against rollin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Game Fish
Game fish, sport fish or quarry refer to popular fish pursued by recreational anglers, and can be freshwater or saltwater fish. Game fish can be eaten after being caught, or released after capture. Some game fish are also targeted commercially, particularly salmon and tuna. Specimens of game fish whose measurements (body length and weight) are a lot above the species' average are sometimes known as trophy fish. Examples The species of fish prized by anglers varies with geography and tradition. Some fish are sought for their value as food, while others are pursued for their fighting abilities, or for the difficulty of successfully enticing the fish to bite the hook. * Big-game fish are blue water saltwater bony fish such as tuna, tarpon, grouper and billfish (sailfish, marlin and swordfish). Occasionally other predatory fishes such as sharks, barracuda and dolphinfish are also pursued. * In North America, many anglers fish for common snook, redfish, salmon/trout, bass, no ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mollusc
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 additional species. The proportion of undescribed species is very high. Many taxa remain poorly studied. Molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats. They are highly diverse, not just in size and anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and habitat. The phylum is typically divided into 7 or 8 taxonomic classes, of which two are entirely extinct. Cephalopod molluscs, such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses, are among the most neurologically advanced of all invertebrates—and either the giant squid or the colossal squid is the largest known invertebrate species. The gastropods ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea. Some crustaceans (Remipedia, Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda) are more closely related to insects and the other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans. The 67,000 described species range in size from '' Stygotantulus stocki'' at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to and a mass of . Like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, which they moult to grow. They are distinguished from other groups of arthropods, such as insects, myriapods and chelicerates, by the possession of biramous (two-parted) limbs, and by th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include arthropods, mollusks, annelids, echinoderms and cnidarians. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Invertebrates vary widely in size, from 50 μm (0.002 in) rotifers to the 9–10 m (30–33 ft) colossal squid. Some so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata, are more closely related to vertebrates than to other invertebrates. This makes the invertebrates paraphyletic, so the term has little meaning in taxonomy. Etymology The word "invertebrate" comes from the Latin word ''vertebra'', whi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular microalgae, such as ''Chlorella,'' ''Prototheca'' and the diatoms, to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelp, a large brown alga which may grow up to in length. Most are aquatic and autotrophic (they generate food internally) and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem and phloem that are found in land plants. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds, while the most complex freshwater forms are the ''Charophyta'', a division of green algae which includes, for example, ''Spirogyra'' and stoneworts. No definition of algae is generally accepted. One definition is that algae "have chlorophyll ''a'' as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around thei ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Orville Ayres
William Orville Ayres (September 11, 1817 – April 30, 1887) was an American physician and ichthyologist. Born in Connecticut, he studied to become a doctor at Yale University School of Medicine. Life and career Ayers, the son of Jared and Dinah (Benedict) Ayres, was born in New Canaan, Conn, September 11, 1817. He graduated from Yale College in 1837. For fifteen years after graduation he was employed as a teacher as follows in Berlin, Conn. (1837–38), Miller's Place, L. I. (1838–41), East Hartford, Conn. (1842–44), Sag Harbor, L. I. (1844–47), and Boston, Mass (1845–52). He began the study of medicine in Boston, and in 1854 received the degree of M.D. from Yale College. He then removed to San Francisco, Cal., where he remained for nearly twenty years, engaged in practice. He also served as Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Toland Medical College in that city. He removed to Chicago shortly before the great fire of 1871, in which he suffered co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kelp Bed
Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Earth.Mann, K.H. 1973. Seaweeds: their productivity and strategy for growth. Science 182: 975-981. Although algal kelp forest combined with coral reefs only cover 0.1% of Earth's total surface, they account for 0.9% of global primary productivity. Kelp forests occur worldwide throughout temperate and polar coastal oceans. In 2007, kelp forests were also discovered in tropical waters near Ecuador.Graham, M.H., B.P. Kinlan, L.D. Druehl, L.E. Garske, and S. Banks. 2007. Deep-water kelp refugia as potential hotspots of tropical marine diversity and productivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104: 16576-16580. Physically formed by brown macroalgae, kelp forests provide a unique habitat for marine organisms and are a source ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |