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Molid (biblical Figure)
The Molidae comprise the family of the molas or ocean sunfishes, unusual fish whose bodies come to an end just behind the dorsal and anal fins, giving them a "half-fish" appearance. They are also the largest of the ray-finned bony fish, with the southern sunfish, ''Mola alexandrini'', recorded at in length and in weight. Description Molidae have the fewest vertebrae of any fish, with only 16 in ''Mola mola''. They also completely lack all caudal bones, and most of their skeleton is made of cartilage. No bony plates occur in the skin, which is, however, thick and dense like cartilage and is fairly rough. They also lack swim bladders. Molids mostly swim by using their anal and dorsal fins; the pectoral fins are probably just stabilizers. To steer, they squirt a strong jet of water out of their mouths or gills. They can also make minor adjustments in the orientation of the anal fin or the dorsal fin so as to control the amount of force it produces and the angle at which the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mola Mola
The ocean sunfish or common mola (''Mola mola'') is one of the largest bony fish in the world. It was misidentified as the heaviest bony fish, which was actually a different species, ''Mola alexandrini''. Adults typically weigh between . The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the world. It resembles a fish head without a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended. Sunfish are generalist predators that consume largely small fish, fish larvae, squid, and crustaceans. Sea jellies and salps, once thought to be the primary prey of sunfish, make up only 15% of a sunfish's diet. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate, up to 300,000,000 at a time. Sunfish fry resemble miniature pufferfish, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin, and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish. Adult sunfish are vulnerable to few natural predators, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caudal (anatomical Term)
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek language, Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provides a definition of what is at the front ("anterior"), behind ("posterior") and so on. As part of defining and describing terms, the body is described through the use of anatomical planes and anatomical axis, anatomical axes. The meaning of terms that are used can change depending on whether an organism is bipedal or quadrupedal. Additionally, for some animals such as invertebrates, some terms may not have any meaning at all; for example, an animal that is radially symmetrical will have no anterior surface, but can still have a description that a part is close to the middle ("proximal") or further from the middle ("distal"). International organisations have determined vocabularies that are often used as standard vocabular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene. In general, seabirds live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds do, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, which can vary in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even feed on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely. Seabirds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gull
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed in the genus ''Larus'', but that arrangement is now considered polyphyletic, leading to the resurrection of several genera. An older name for gulls is mews, which is cognate with German ''Möwe'', Danish ''måge'', Swedish ''mås'', Dutch ''meeuw'', Norwegian ''måke''/''måse'' and French ''mouette'', and can still be found in certain regional dialects. Gulls are typically medium to large in size, usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings. They typically have harsh wailing or squawking calls; stout, longish bills; and webbed feet. Most gulls are ground-nesting carnivores which take live food or scavenge opportunistically, particularly the ''Larus'' species. Live food often includes crustac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halfmoon
The halfmoon (''Medialuna californiensis''), also known as the blue perch, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a sea chub from the subfamily Scorpidinae, part of the family Kyphosidae. It is native to the coasts of the eastern Pacific Ocean off western North America. It is fished for using hook and line and it is a desirable food fish. Description The halfmoon has an elongate, compressed, oval body with a small pointed head. It has a small, horizontal mouth in which the upper jaw is partially hidden by the orbital bone when the mouth has closed. Each jaw has a single row of pointed teeth. It has a continuous dorsal fin which has 9-11 spines in the anterior portion which fold down into a scaly furrow, the posterior portion has 22-27 soft rays and these are higher than the spines. The anal fin has 3 spines and 17-21 soft rays. The caudal fin is marginally concave. Most of the head and body is covered in small, thick and rough scales except foe the area forward of the eyes. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flotsam
In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the remains of a ship that has been wrecked—a destroyed ship at sea, whether it has sunk or is floating on the surface of the water. Overview A wreck is categorized as property belonging to no apparent owner that either sinks to the seabed or floats on the surface of the water, whether it be intentionally cast overboard or as the result of an accident. The term encompasses the hull of the vessel and its fixtures as well as any other form of object on board, such as cargo and stores, and personal effects of the crew and passengers. This also encompasses the narrower definition of salvage, that is, property that has been recovered from a wreckage, or the recovery of the ship itself. There are a number of factors that contribute to the formation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Cleaner Fish
Cleaner fish are fish that show a specialist feeding strategy by providing a service to other species, referred to as clients, by removing dead skin, ectoparasites, and infected tissue from the surface or gill chambers. This example of cleaning symbiosis represents mutualism and cooperation behaviour, an ecological interaction that benefits both parties involved. However, the cleaner fish may consume mucus or tissue, thus creating a form of parasitism called cheating. The client animals are typically fish of a different species, but can also be aquatic reptiles (sea turtles and marine iguana), mammals (manatees and whales), or octopuses. A wide variety of fish including wrasse, cichlids, catfish, pipefish, lumpsuckers, and gobies display cleaning behaviors across the globe in fresh, brackish, and marine waters but specifically concentrated in the tropics due to high parasite density. Similar behaviour is found in other groups of animals, such as cleaner shrimps. There are two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), Disease vector, vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropreda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salp
A salp (plural salps, also known colloquially as “sea grape”) or salpa (plural salpae or salpas) is a barrel-shaped, planktic tunicate. It moves by contracting, thereby pumping water through its gelatinous body, one of the most efficient examples of jet propulsion in the animal kingdom. The salp strains the pumped water through its internal feeding filters, feeding on phytoplankton. Distribution Salps are common in equatorial, temperate, and cold seas, where they can be seen at the surface, singly or in long, stringy colonies. The most abundant concentrations of salps are in the Southern Ocean (near Antarctica), where they sometimes form enormous swarms, often in deep water, and are sometimes even more abundant than krill. Since 1910, while krill populations in the Southern Ocean have declined, salp populations appear to be increasing. Salps have been seen in increasing numbers along the coast of Washington. Life cycle Salps have a complex life cycle, with an obligatory a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetraodontiformes
The Tetraodontiformes are an order of highly derived ray-finned fish, also called the Plectognathi. Sometimes these are classified as a suborder of the order Perciformes. The Tetraodontiformes are represented by 10 extant families and at least 349 species overall; most are marine and dwell in and around tropical coral reefs, but a few species are found in freshwater streams and estuaries. They have no close relatives, and descend from a line of coral-dwelling species that emerged around 80 million years ago. Description Various bizarre forms are included here, all radical departures from the streamlined body plan typical of most fishes. These forms range from nearly square or triangular (boxfishes), globose ( pufferfishes) to laterally compressed ( filefishes and triggerfishes). They range in size from '' Rudarius excelsus'' (a filefish), measuring just in length, to the ocean sunfish, the largest of all bony fishes at up to in length and weighing over 2 tonnes. Most members ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharyngeal Teeth
Pharyngeal teeth are teeth in the pharyngeal arch of the throat of cyprinids, suckers, and a number of other fish species otherwise lacking teeth."Suckers ''Catostomidae''" Many popular aquarium fish such as and es have these structures. Members of the genus '' Botia'' such as |
