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Slippery Dick
The slippery dick (''Halichoeres bivittatus'') is a species of wrasse native to shallow, tropical waters of the western Atlantic Ocean. Description The slippery dick wrasse is a small fish that can reach a maximum length of 35 cm. It has a thin, elongate body with a terminal mouth, and its body coloration has three phases during its life: # The terminal phase is when the fish becomes a male, so the body coloration turns to green with two longitudinal dark stripes. The head and tail are covered with pink lines; it has a small black dot up to the pectoral fin. # The initial phase is when the juvenile becomes a female. The background body coloration is mainly whitish with pink shade, and the sides have two dark longitudinal stripes. The median one is usually black extending from the snout and via the eye to the base of the tail. The second one is a paler lateral stripe further below. The upper stripe incorporates a bicolored (green and yellow turning later to black) spot wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Elieser Bloch
Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish family, he learned German and Latin and studied anatomy before settling in Berlin as a physician. He amassed a large natural history collection, particularly of fish specimens. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyology, ichthyologists of the 18th century, and wrote many papers on natural history, comparative anatomy, and physiology. Life Bloch was born at Ansbach in 1723 where his father was a Torah writer and his mother owned a small shop. Educated at home in Hebrew literature he became a private tutor in Hamburg for a Jewish surgeon. Here he learned German, Latin and anatomy. He then studied medicine in Berlin and received a doctorate in 1762 from Frankfurt (Oder), Frankfort on the Oder with a treatise on skin dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brittle Star
Brittle stars, serpent stars, or ophiuroids (; ; referring to the serpent-like arms of the brittle star) are echinoderms in the class Ophiuroidea, closely related to starfish. They crawl across the sea floor using their flexible arms for locomotion. The ophiuroids generally have five long, slender, whip-like arms which may reach up to in length on the largest specimens. The Ophiuroidea contain two large clades, Ophiurida (brittle stars) and Euryalida (basket stars). Over 2,000 species of brittle stars live today. More than 1,200 of these species are found in deep waters, greater than 200 m deep. Range The ophiuroids diverged in the Early Ordovician, about 500 million years ago. Ophiuroids can be found today in all of the major marine provinces, from the poles to the tropics. Basket stars are usually confined to the deeper parts of this range; Ophiuroids are known even from abyssal (>6,000 m) depths. However, brittle stars are also common members of reef communities, where t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish Of The Atlantic Ocean
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of living fish species are ray-finned fish, belonging to the class Actinopterygii, with around 99% of those being teleosts. The earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era, diversifying into a wide variety of forms. Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many (such as sharks) became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halichoeres
''Halichoeres'', commonly called wrasses, are a genus of fishes in the family Labridae found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.Victor, B.C., Alfaro, M.E. & Sorenson, L. (2013)Rediscovery of ''Sagittalarva inornata'' n. gen., n. comb. (Gilbert, 1890) (Perciformes: Labridae), a long-lost deepwater fish from the eastern Pacific Ocean: a case study of a forensic approach to taxonomy using DNA barcoding.''Zootaxa, 3669 (4): 551–570.'' Species There are currently 80 recognized species in this genus: * '' Halichoeres adustus'' ( C. H. Gilbert, 1890) (Black wrasse) * '' Halichoeres aestuaricola'' W. A. Bussing, 1972 (Mangrove wrasse) * '' Halichoeres argus'' ( Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801) (Argus wrasse) * '' Halichoeres bathyphilus'' ( Beebe & Tee-Van, 1932) (Green-band wrasse) * '' Halichoeres bicolor'' ( Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801) (Pearly-spotted wrasse) * '' Halichoeres binotopsis'' ( Bleeker, 1849) (Saowisata wrasse) * '' Halichoeres biocellatus'' L. P. Schultz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in data gathering and analysis, research, field projects, advocacy, and education. IUCN's mission is to "influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable". Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to sustainable development in its projects. IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation. It tries to influence the actions of governments, business and other stakeholders by providing information and advice and through building partnerships. The organization is best known to the wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lek (biology)
A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. A lek can also indicate an available plot of space able to be utilized by displaying males to defend their own share of territory for the breeding season. A lekking species is characterised by male displays, strong female mate choice, and the conferring of indirect benefits to males and reduced costs to females. Although most prevalent among birds such as black grouse, lekking is also found in a wide range of vertebrates including some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, and arthropods including crustaceans and insects. A classical lek consists of male territories in visual and auditory range of each other. An exploded lek, as seen in the kakapo (the owl parrot), has more widely separated territories, but still in auditory range. Lekking is associated with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protogynous Hermaphrodite
Sequential hermaphroditism (called dichogamy in botany) is a type of hermaphroditism that occurs in many fish, gastropods, and plants. Sequential hermaphroditism occurs when the individual changes its sex at some point in its life. In particular, a sequential hermaphrodite produces eggs (female gametes) and sperm (male gametes) at different stages in life. Species that can undergo these changes from one sex to another do so as a normal event within their reproductive cycle that is usually cued by either social structure or the achievement of a certain age or size. In animals, the different types of change are male to female (protandry or protandrous hermaphroditism), female to male (protogyny or protogynous hermaphroditism), bidirectional (serial or bidirectional hermaphroditism). Both protogynous and protandrous hermaphroditism allow the organism to switch between functional male and functional female. Bidirectional hermaphrodites have the capacity for sex change in either directi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gastropoda
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, and land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polychaete
Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class (biology), class of generally marine invertebrate, marine annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. More than 10,000 species are described in this class. Common representatives include the lugworm (''Arenicola marina'') and the Alitta virens, sandworm or Alitta succinea, clam worm ''Alitta''. Polychaetes as a class are robust and widespread, with species that live in the coldest ocean temperatures of the abyssal plain, to forms which tolerate the extremely high temperatures near hydrothermal vents. Polychaetes occur throughout the Earth's oceans at all depths, from forms that live as plankton near the surface, to a 2- to 3-cm specimen (still unclassified) observed by the robot ocean probe Nereus (underwater vehicle), ''Nereus'' at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invertebrates
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] |
Wrasse
The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes. They are typically small, most of them less than long, although the largest, the humphead wrasse, can measure up to . They are efficient carnivores, feeding on a wide range of small invertebrates. Many smaller wrasses follow the feeding trails of larger fish, picking up invertebrates disturbed by their passing. Juveniles of some representatives of the genera ''Bodianus'', ''Epibulus'', ''Cirrhilabrus'', ''Oxycheilinus'', and ''Paracheilinus'' hide among the tentacles of the free-living mushroom corals & ''Heliofungia actiniformis''. The word "wrasse" comes from the Cornish word ''wragh'', a lenited form of ''gwragh'', meaning an old woman or hag, via Cornish dialect ''wrath''. It is related to the Welsh ''gwrach'' and Breton ''gwrac'h''. Distribution Most wrasses inhabit the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the northern coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the northwest. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the numerous islands of the West Indies, and adjacent coasts are collectively known as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about . The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays: the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, Gulf of Paria and Gulf of Honduras. The Caribbean Sea has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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