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Ochre Sea Star
''Pisaster ochraceus'', generally known as the purple sea star, ochre sea star, or ochre starfish, is a common seastar found among the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Identified as a keystone species, ''P. ochraceus'' is considered an important indicator for the health of the intertidal zone. Description This sea star has five stout rays that range in length from 10 to 25 centimeters (4 to 10 in). The rays are arranged around an ill-defined central disk. While most individuals are purple, they can be orange, orange-ochre, yellow, reddish, or brown. The aboral surface contains many small spines (ossicles) that are arranged in a netlike or pentagonal pattern on the central disk. The ossicles are no higher than 2 mm.Kozloff, E. N. (1996). Marine Invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: University of Washington Press.McFadden, M. (2002). Pisaster ochraceus. Retrieved May 10, 2010, from https://web.archive.org/web/20090412083835/http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics/departme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganges, British Columbia
Ganges, British Columbia is an unincorporated community on Salt Spring Island in the province of British Columbia, Canada. History Ganges Harbour, from which Ganges takes its name, was originally called Admiralty Bay but was renamed by Captain Richards in 1859 after , and indirectly after the Ganges river in South Asia. The ship was at the Pacific Station from 1857 to 1860 under the command of Captain John Fulford as flagship of Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes. ''Ganges'' was the last sailing line-of-battle ship in foreign service. The first house on Salt Spring Island was built here in 1859 by the first group of 20 settlers that arrived on the island that summer. On 4 July 1860 the harbour was the scene of the killing of eight Bella Bella (Heiltsuk) people and the capture of three women and two boys for slaves by the Cowichans. A few days later, two Cowichans were beheaded, by a band from Fort Rupert. Climate Attractions and services Ganges is the main service centre on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pisaster Brevispinus
''Pisaster brevispinus'', commonly called the pink sea star, giant pink sea star, or short-spined sea star, is a species of sea star in the northeast Pacific Ocean. It was first described to science by William Stimson in 1857. The type specimen was collected on a sandy bottom, deep, near the mouth of San Francisco Bay. Description The pink sea star has five thick arms and a large central disc. It is one of the largest sea stars in the world. While typically having a diameter of , monsters up to have been found. The largest animals may weigh . The upper, arboral, surface of this star is generally pink, sometimes with shadings of gray. The radius of the arms is 2.8 to 5.0 times the radius of the central disc. The central disc contains an obvious madreporite on its upper surface. This structure filters water used by the animal. The mouth of the animal is found on the underside of the central disc. There are short, spines on the upper surface of the star. While a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decapoda
The Decapoda or decapods (literally "ten-footed") are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estimated to contain nearly 15,000 species in around 2,700 genera, with around 3,300 fossil species. Nearly half of these species are crabs, with the shrimp (about 3,000 species) and Anomura including hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, squat lobsters (about 2500 species) making up the bulk of the remainder. The earliest fossil decapod is the Devonian ''Palaeopalaemon''. Anatomy Decapods can have as many as 38 appendages, arranged in one pair per body segment. As the name Decapoda (from the Greek , ', "ten", and , '' -pod'', "foot") implies, ten of these appendages are considered legs. They are the pereiopods, found on the last five thoracic segments. In many decapods, one pair of these "legs" has enlarged pincers, called chelae, with the legs be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Echinoids
Sea urchins () are spine (zoology), spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (Test (biology), tests) of sea urchins are round and spiny, ranging in diameter from . Sea urchins move slowly, crawling with tube feet, and also propel themselves with their spines. Although algae are the primary diet, sea urchins also eat slow-moving (Sessility (motility), sessile) animals. Predation, Predators that eat sea urchins include a wide variety of fish, starfish, crabs, marine mammals. Sea urchins are also used as food especially in Japan. Adult sea urchins have fivefold symmetry, but their pluteus larvae feature Bilateral symmetry, bilateral (mirror) symmetry, indicating that the sea urchin belongs to the Bilateria group of animal phylum, phyla, which also comprises the chordates and the arthropods, the annelids and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile (nonmobile) and most are suspension feeders, but those in infraclass Rhizocephala are highly specialized parasites on crustaceans. They have four nektonic (active swimming) larval stages. Around 1,000 barnacle species are currently known. The name is Latin, meaning "curl-footed". The study of barnacles is called cirripedology. Description Barnacles are encrusters, attaching themselves temporarily to a hard substrate or a symbiont such as a whale ( whale barnacles), a sea snake ('' Platylepas ophiophila''), or another crustacean, like a crab or a lobster (Rhizocephala). The most common among them, "acorn barnacles" ( Sessilia), are sessile where they grow their shells directly onto the substrate. Peduncul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snail
A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also numerous species of sea snails and freshwater snails. Gastropods that naturally lack a shell, or have only an internal shell, are mostly called '' slugs'', and land snails that have only a very small shell (that they cannot retract into) are often called ''semi-slugs''. Snails have considerable human relevance, including as food items, as pests, and as vectors of disease, and their shells are used as decorative objects and are incorporated into jewelry. The snail has also had some cultural significance, tending to be associated with lethargy. The sn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limpet
Limpets are a group of aquatic snails that exhibit a conical shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot. Limpets are members of the class Gastropoda, but are polyphyletic, meaning the various groups called "limpets" descended independently from different ancestral gastropods. This general category of conical shell is known as "patelliform" (dish-shaped). All members of the large and ancient marine clade Patellogastropoda are limpets. Within that clade, the members of the Patellidae family in particular are often referred to as "true limpets". Other groups, not in the same family, are also called limpets of one type or another, due to the similarity of their shells' shape. Examples include the Fissurellidae ("keyhole limpet") family, which is part of the Vetigastropoda clade (many other members of the Vetigastropoda do not have the morphology of limpets) and the Siphonariidae ("false limpets"), which use a siphon to pump water over their gills. Behaviour and ecolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiton
Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora (), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as gumboots or sea cradles or coat-of-mail shells or suck-rocks, or more formally as loricates, polyplacophorans, and occasionally as polyplacophores. Chitons have a shell composed of eight separate shell plates or valves. These plates overlap slightly at the front and back edges, and yet articulate well with one another. Because of this, the shell provides protection at the same time as permitting the chiton to flex upward when needed for locomotion over uneven surfaces, and even allows the animal to curl up into a ball when dislodged from rocks. The shell plates are encircled by a skirt known as a girdle. Habitat Chitons live worldwide, from cold waters through to the tropics. They live on hard surfaces, such as on or under rocks, or in rock crevices. Some species live quite hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mytilus Trossulus
''Mytilus trossulus'', the bay mussel or foolish mussel, is a medium-sized edible marine bivalve mollusc in the family Mytilidae. ''Mytilus trossulus'' is one of the three principal, closely related taxa in the ''Mytilus edulis'' complex of blue mussels, which collectively are widely distributed on the temperate to subarctic coasts the Northern Hemisphere, and often are dominant inhabitants on hard substrates of the intertidal and nearshore habitats. Distribution ''Mytilus trossulus'' is the main native intertidal mussel in the Northern Pacific. In North America it is found from California to Alaska, and in Asia from Hokkaido northwards. At its southern limits, it hybridizes with ''Mytilus galloprovincialis'' (the Mediterranean mussel), which has been introduced to the Pacific by human activity. In the North Atlantic, ''M. trossulus'' is found on the U.S. coast of Maine and northwards to Canada, as well as in scattered localities on North European coasts. In these regions it o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plankton
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucial source of food to many small and large aquatic organisms, such as bivalves, fish and whales. Marine plankton include bacteria, archaea, algae, protozoa and drifting or floating animals that inhabit the saltwater of oceans and the brackish waters of estuaries. Freshwater plankton are similar to marine plankton, but are found in the freshwaters of lakes and rivers. Plankton are usually thought of as inhabiting water, but there are also airborne versions, the aeroplankton, that live part of their lives drifting in the atmosphere. These include plant spores, pollen and wind-scattered seeds, as well as microorganisms swept into the air from terrestrial dust storms and oceanic plankton swept into the air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Mussel
The California mussel (''Mytilus californianus'') is a large edible mussel, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Mytilidae. This species is native to the west coast of North America, occurring from northern Mexico to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. California mussels are found clustered together, often in very large aggregations, on rocks in the upper intertidal zone on the open coast, where they are exposed to the strong action of the surf. Shell description The shell of this species is thick and is often in length, sometimes larger still. The shell is blue on the outside with a heavy brown periostracum which is usually worn off except near the growing edge of the shell. The beaks of the shell are often eroded. The shell has coarse radial ribbing and irregular growth lines on the outer surface. The inner surface of the shell is blue and faintly pearly. Like other mytilids, the animal is attached to the substrate with a very strong and elastic byssus. The shell is pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ochre Sea Star
''Pisaster ochraceus'', generally known as the purple sea star, ochre sea star, or ochre starfish, is a common seastar found among the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Identified as a keystone species, ''P. ochraceus'' is considered an important indicator for the health of the intertidal zone. Description This sea star has five stout rays that range in length from 10 to 25 centimeters (4 to 10 in). The rays are arranged around an ill-defined central disk. While most individuals are purple, they can be orange, orange-ochre, yellow, reddish, or brown. The aboral surface contains many small spines (ossicles) that are arranged in a netlike or pentagonal pattern on the central disk. The ossicles are no higher than 2 mm.Kozloff, E. N. (1996). Marine Invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: University of Washington Press.McFadden, M. (2002). Pisaster ochraceus. Retrieved May 10, 2010, from https://web.archive.org/web/20090412083835/http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics/departme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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