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Portal:Marine life

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A male whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium.

The Marine Life Portal

Killer whales (orcas) are highly visible marine apex predators that hunt many large species. But most biological activity in the ocean takes place with microscopic marine organisms that cannot be seen individually with the naked eye, such as marine bacteria and phytoplankton.

Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals, and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms, mostly microorganisms, produce oxygen and sequester carbon. Marine life, in part, shape and protect shorelines, and some marine organisms even help create new land (e.g. coral building reefs).

Marine invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters, including breathing tubes as in mollusc siphons. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. Marine mammals (e.g. dolphins, whales, otters, and seals) need to surface periodically to breathe air. (Full article...)


Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. 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. (Full article...)

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Sphyraena barracuda with prey
A barracuda is a large, predatory, ray-finned fish known for its fearsome appearance and ferocious behaviour. The barracuda is a saltwater fish of the genus Sphyraena, the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. It is found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide ranging from the eastern border of the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, on its western border the Caribbean Sea, and in tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean. Barracudas reside near the top of the water and near coral reefs and sea grasses. Barracudas are targeted by sport-fishing enthusiasts. (Full article...)
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  • ... when southern right whale and humpback whales breach (leap out of the water), seagulls can often be seen darting in to pick up pieces of skin that become dislodged from the breaching whales. Presumably this is an easy source of food for seagulls.
  • ... Shark skin is so rough that in the past it was used to make a type of sandpaper, called shagreen.
  • ... whales and dolphins don’t sleep in the way humans do. Although we don’t know how they sleep, some scientists believe they sleep with half the brain asleep and half the brain awake, keeping them aware of danger.
  • ... Most sharks never close their eyes. Some have special see-through eyelids that protect their eyes without cutting out light. Others just roll their eyes up into their head to protect them.
  • ... dolphins often leap clear of the water when travelling at speed. This is because the density of water is much greater than that of air and they are able to travel faster by leaping out of the water.
  • ... The electroreception in sharks is so sensitive that they often mistake the minute electrical charge caused by rusting boat hulls for prey.

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Photo credit: Nicolas Pourcelot

A limule (Horseshoe crab) in the Hạ Long Bay, Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. Horseshoe crabs are arthropods that live primarily in shallow ocean waters on soft sandy or muddy bottoms.

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