Portal:Marine life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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...)

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

Selected article - show another

Octocorallia (also known as Alcyonaria) is a class of Anthozoa comprising over 3,000 species of marine organisms formed of colonial polyps with 8-fold symmetry. It includes the blue coral, soft corals, sea pens, and gorgonians (sea fans and sea whips) within three orders: Alcyonacea, Helioporacea, and Pennatulacea. These organisms have an internal skeleton secreted by mesoglea and polyps with eight tentacles and eight mesentaries. As with all Cnidarians these organisms have a complex life cycle including a motile phase when they are considered plankton and later characteristic sessile phase.

Octocorals have existed at least since the Ordovician period, as shown by Maurits Lindström's findings in the 1970s. Recent work suggesting that the Cambrian Pywackia may represent a Cambrian octocoral is disputed. (Full article...)
List of selected articles

Marine life images - load new batch

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various marine life-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

More Did you know - load new batch

  • ... Some sharks can change shape. Swell sharks inflate their bodies with water or air to make themselves bigger and rounder.
  • ... cetaceans with pointed beaks have good binocular vision, but others, such as the Sperm Whale cannot see directly in front or behind.
  • ... A typical shark has several hundred teeth at any one time.
  • ... all whales and dolphins have the remains of the pelvis, but it is reduced to two small bones at the rear of the animal.
  • ... You have a greater chance of being struck by lightning, drowning in a bathtub, fatally falling down stairs, or dying from a bee sting than being killed by a shark.
  • ... newborn cetacean calves do not have the skills to swim for long periods or to accelerate away from danger, so they swim in the slipstream of their mothers, enabling the mother to protect her calf.

Related portals

Topics

List articles

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories


Selected image

Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) near Punta Arena, Chile.
Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) near Punta Arena, Chile.
Photo credit: User:Nhobgood

Ocellaris clownfish often live symbiotically with the Heteractis magnifica sea anemone, using them for shelter and protection.

More on the Ocellaris clownfish

See also

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

WikiProjects

Tasks

Have a look at the Marine life WikiProject and sign up.


Here are some tasks you can do, as organized by The Marine life Wikiproject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache