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Characteristics and Physical Features of the Narwhal

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/species/Narwhal.shtm

The narwhals are usually found  in pods of about 10 up to 100 whales that swim solely in the Arctic waters. The name Narwhal means “corpse whale” because it often swims belly up, laying motionless for several minutes. Narwhals usually take their time going places, slowly breathing and rolling, but when chased, they are remarkably quick. Sometimes they travel in small family groups, in these groups they communicate by means of a great variety of squeals, trills, whistles, and clicks. If you were in the middle of a pod you would find out that the sound is deafening.

The male narwhal sometimes duel in the summer feeding ground, crossing tusks in a friendly manner. Nobody knows why narwhals dual, it might be to “scratch an itch”, (the base of the tusk is usually infected with lice) or this tusk crossing might be a greeting, no one knows for sure.

Contrasted with the huge tusk are two round little eyes and a small, turned up mouth located just below the large tusk. Instead of a dorsal fin. The narwhal has a low, bumpy ridge that begins in the middle of his back and goes to the flukes. The biggest narwhal ever found weighed 3,500 pounds. They are shaped like a beluga and have about four inches of fat to insulate them from the cold Arctic waters.

Just about everything about the narwhal is a mystery even what they eat. Scientists have gotten a clue to their diet since they have been able to examine the contents of their stomachs. The most common thing they found is squid, occasionally they have seen flatfish and Greenland halibut. How the narwhal catches their prey nobody really knows. Some scientist think that the narwhal makes a real loud sound and stuns its prey. But they do know that the long tusk is not used in hunt.

Identification:

Length: 10-20 ft.
Weight: 1 ton
Color: White and green and brown spotted.

Distinguishing Characteristics: 9 foot long ivory tusk.

Breeding: Unknown.

Habitat:

Range: West Greenland to Mid-eastern Canada.

Diet: Squid and flatfish.

What is the most striking feature of the narwhal?

The ivory tusk protruding from a tooth socket is the most distinctive feature of the narwhal. This tusk is actually a tooth that grew out, it varies in length but can reach nine feet in size. Embedded 15 inches into the head of the whale, the tusk is straight as an arrow, spiraled up to five inches from the tip where it is polished and smooth.

Why is the narwhal called “The Unicorn of the Sea”?

The narwhals long spirally tusk earned it that title because it has the appearance of the legendary unicorn.

How does the narwhal hear?

Like many other marine mammals the narwhal uses its forehead sense of echo location to find things. It also uses this part of the forehead to “feel” sound waves as they bounce through the water.

In a race between a narwhal and a killer whale (Orca) who would win?

The narwhal would win. However, when the narwhal is caught unawares the killer whale will win. The orca would over take the narwhal and ram it head on, knocking it unconscious. Where upon the killer whale will eat the narwhal.

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Harp Seal Range

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Fast Facts

Type:

Mammal

Diet:

Carnivore

Average life span in the wild:

20 years

Size:

5.25 to 6.25 ft (1.6 to 1.9 m)

Weight:

400 lbs (180 kg)

Group name:

Colony or rookery

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

Harp seals spend relatively little time on land and prefer to swim in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. These sleek swimmers cruise the chilly waters and feed on fish and crustaceans. They can remain submerged for up to 15 minutes. Harp seals are sometimes called saddleback seals because of the dark, saddlelike marking on the back and sides of their light yellow or gray bodies.

Both sexes return each year to breeding grounds in Newfoundland, the Greenland Sea, and the White Sea. On this turf males fight for their mates, battling with sharp teeth and powerful flippers.

When the mating ends, females gather in groups to give birth. Young harp seals are born on the ice, and mothers identify their own offspring from the multitudes by their smell. The young seals are famous for their snowy white coats. This fluffy fur is highly valued and has drawn hunters to the Newfoundland breeding grounds for two centuries. During the past several decades these grounds have become the scene of a human conflict between sealers and outraged environmentalists and animal rights activists. Modern hunts are better regulated than in the past, but the harp seal remains perhaps the most commercially important seal, with hundreds of thousands killed each year

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/harp-seals/

Pinniped Printouts Pinnipeds (Order Carnivora) are fin-footed marine mammals who live mostly in the water but spend some time on land or ice (usually to reproduce or rest). Pinnipeds include the seals, sea lions, and walrus; there are 33 species of pinnipeds alive today. Pinnipeds are found in polar, sub-polar and temperate waters. Pinniped means “Fin Foot” in Latin. There are three families of pinnipeds, including: Phocidae (true seals, with no visible ear flaps) Otariidae (eared seals, including the fur seals and sea lions) Odobenidae (the walrus). Pinnipeds have a thick layer of insulating blubber that keeps them warm in cold water. They also have more blood (per weight) than most other mammals, keeping them well-supplied with oxygen during long underwater dives. This allows these carnivores (meat-eaters) to hunt for their oceanic prey. Their diet includes fish, crustaceans, birds, and krill. Pinnipeds are hunted by polar bears, killer whales, sharks, and man.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/blue-whales/
http://www.saveourseas.com/minisites/kids/49.0.html
Whales are large, intelligent, aquatic mammals. They breathe air through blowhole(s) into lungs (unlike fish who breathe using gills). Whales have sleek, streamlined bodies that move easily through the water. They are the only mammals, other than manatees (seacows), that live their entire lives in the water, and the only mammals that have adapted to life in the open oceans.

Whales breathe air. They are NOT fish. They are mammals that spend their entire lives in the water.

Cetaceans are the group of mammals that includes the whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Like all mammals:

* Whales breathe air into lungs,
* Whales have hair (although they have a lot less than land mammals, and have almost none as adults),
* Whales are warm-blooded (they maintain a high body temperature),
* Whales have mammary glands with which they nourish their young,
* Whales have a four-chambered heart. SWIMMING AND OTHER WATER ACTIVITIES
Whales have a streamlined shape and almost no hair as adults (it would cause drag while swimming). Killer whales and Shortfin Pilot whales are the fastest, swimming up to 30 miles per hour (48 kph).
Whales swim by moving their muscular tail (flukes) up and down. Fish swim by moving their tails left and right.

Breaching: Many whales are very acrobatic, even breaching (jumping) high out of the water and then slapping the water as they come back down. Sometimes they twirl around while breaching. Breaching may be purely for play or may be used to loosen skin parasites or have some social meaning.

Spyhopping: This is another cetacean activity in which the whale pokes its head out of the water and turns around, perhaps to take a look around.

Lobtailing: Some whales stick their tail out of the water into the air, swing it around, and then slap it on the water’s surface; this is called lobtailing. It makes a very loud sound. The meaning or purpose of lobtailing is unknown, but may be done as a warning to the rest of the pod of danger.

LoggingLogging: Logging is when a whale lies still at the surface of the water, resting, with its tail hanging down. While floating motionless, part of the head, the dorsal fin or parts of the back are exposed at the surface.

MIGRATION
Many ceteaceans, especially baleen whales, migrate over very long distances each year. They travel, sometimes in groups (pods), from cold-water feeding grounds to warm-water breeding grounds.
Gray whales make the longest seasonal migration of any of the whales. They travel about 12,500 miles each year.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Cetaceans have very strong social ties. The strongest social ties are between mother and calf. A social group of whales is called a pod. Baleen whales travel alone or in small pods. The toothed whales travel in large, sometimes stable pods. The toothed whales frequently hunt their prey in groups, migrate together, and share care of their young.

REPRODUCTION

Young cetaceans are frequently mottled in color, camouflaging them from predators. Newborns have a sparse covering of hair which they lose as adults.
Cetaceans give birth to live young which are nourished with milk from their mothers – they don’t lay eggs. Cetaceans breed seasonally, usually in warm tropical waters, and females usually have one calf every 1-3 years. The gestation times range from 9-18 months. Whale calves can swim at or soon after birth. Mother whales care for their young for an extended period of time, usually at least a year, feeding them milk and protecting them.

The Octopus: The word octopus means “eight feet.” Octopuses are solitary, eight-armed animals that live on the ocean floor. There are over 100 different species of octopuses. The Giant Octopus is the biggest octopus. This huge mollusk is up to 23 ft (7 m) from arm tip to arm tip, weighing up to 400 pounds (182 kg). The smallest is the Californian octopus, which is only 3/8 inch (1 cm) long.

Anatomy: An octopus has a soft body and eight arms. Each arm has two rows of suction cups. If it loses an arm, it will eventually regrow another arm. It has blue blood. An octopus has an eye on each side of its head and has very good eyesight. An octopus cannot hear.

Diet: Octopuses eat small crabs and scallops, plus some snails, fish, turtles, crustaceans (like shrimp), and other octopuses. They catch prey with their arms, then kill it by biting it with their tough beak, paralyzing the prey with a nerve poison, and softening the flesh. They then suck out the flesh. Octopuses hunt mostly at night. Only the Australian Blue-ringed octopus has a poison strong enough to kill a person.

Protection: Octopuses live in dens, spaces under rocks, crevices on the sea floor, or holes they dig under large rocks. Octopuses pile rocks to block the front of their den. The den protects them from predators (like moray eels) and provides a place to lay eggs and care for them (a mother octopus doesn’t eat during the entire 1 to 2 months she is caring for her eggs). In order to escape predators, octopuses can squirt black ink into the water, allowing the octopus to escape. Another defense that octopuses have is changing their skin color to blend into the background, camouflaging themselves. The octopus swims by spewing water from its body, a type of jet propulsion. An Octopus is probably one of the most clever animals in the ocean. You have probably seen pictures of them but in real life they can be huge enough to fill a room with very long arms called Tentacles.

The common octopus would be unique for its appearance alone, with its massive bulbous head, large eyes, and eight distinctive arms. But by far the most striking characteristic of the octopus is the wide array of techniques it uses to avoid or thwart attackers.

Its first—and most amazing—line of defense is its ability to hide in plain sight. Using a network of pigment cells and specialized muscles in its skin, the common octopus can almost instantaneously match the colors, patterns, and even textures of its surroundings. Predators such as sharks, eels, and dolphins swim by without even noticing it.

When discovered, an octopus will release a cloud of black ink to obscure its attacker’s view, giving it time to swim away. The ink even contains a substance that dulls a predator’s sense of smell, making the fleeing octopus harder to track. Fast swimmers, they can jet forward by expelling water through their mantles. And their soft bodies can squeeze into impossibly small cracks and crevices where predators can’t follow.

If all else fails, an octopus can lose an arm to escape a predator’s grasp and regrow it later with no permanent damage. They also have beaklike jaws that can deliver a nasty bite, and venomous saliva, used mainly for subduing prey.

Considered the most intelligent of all invertebrates, the common octopus is found in the tropical and temperate waters of the world’s oceans. They can grow to about 4.3 feet (1.3 meters) in length and weigh up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms), although averages are much smaller. They prey on crabs, crayfish, and mollusks, and will sometimes use their ink to disorient their victims before attacking

http://www.saveourseas.com/minisites/kids/39.0.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/photogalleries/100608-gulf-oil-spill-environment-birds-animals-pictures/#gulf-oil-spill-killing-wildlife-gull_21357_600x450.jpg

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Sea Horse

Seahorses are a type of small fish that have armored plates all over their body (they don’t have scales). There are about 50 different species of seahorses around the world. They live in seaweed beds in warm water and are very slow swimmers. Seahorses can change their color to camouflage (hide) themselves in order to hide from enemies. The most unusual seahorse is the Australian sea horse, which has leaf-like camouflage all over its body, making it almost disappear in the seaweed bed.

Anatomy: Seahorses have a long, horse-like head (hence their name) and a curled tail. Seahorses range in size from under a centimeter long (Pygmy Seahorses) to about 1 foot (30 cm) long.

Reproduction: The female seahorse produces eggs, but they are held inside the male’s body until they hatch; he is pregnant for about 40 to 50 days. The sea horse is the only animal in which the father is pregnant.

Classification: Kingdom: Animalia (animals), Phylum: Chordata, Class: Osteichthyes (bony fish), Order: Gasterosteiformes (armored, small-mouthed fish), Family: Syngnathidae (pipe fish), Genus: Hippocampus (meaning “horse sea monster” in Greek), and many species.

Type:

Mammal

Diet:

Herbivore

Average life span in the wild:

40 years

Size:

8 to 13 ft (2.4 to 4 m)

Weight:

440 to 1,300 lbs (200 to 600 kg)

Protection status:

Endangered

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

Manatees are sometimes called sea cows, and their languid pace lends merit to the comparison. However, despite their massive bulk, they are graceful swimmers in coastal waters and rivers. Powering themselves with their strong tails, manatees typically glide along at 5 miles (8 kilometers) an hour but can swim 15 miles (24 kilometers) an hour in short bursts.

Manatees are usually seen alone, in pairs, or in small groups of a half dozen or fewer animals. From above the water’s surface, the animal’s nose and nostrils are often the only thing visible. Manatees never leave the water but, like all marine mammals, they must breathe air at the surface. A resting manatee can remain submerged for up to 15 minutes, but while swimming, it must surface every three or four minutes.

There are three species of manatee, distinguished primarily by where they live. One manatee population ranges along the North American east coast from Florida to Brazil. Other species inhabit the Amazon River and the west coast and rivers of Africa.

Manatees are born underwater. Mothers must help their calves to the surface so that they can take their first breath, but the infants can typically swim on their own only an hour later.

Manatee calves drink their mothers’ milk, but adults are voracious grazers. They eat water grasses, weeds, and algae—and lots of them. A manatee can eat a tenth of its own massive weight in just 24 hours.

Manatees are large, slow-moving animals that frequent coastal waters and rivers. These attributes make them vulnerable to hunters seeking their hides, oil, and bones. Manatee numbers declined throughout the last century, mostly because of hunting pressure. Today, manatees are endangered. Though protected by laws, they still face threats. The gentle beasts are often accidentally hit by motorboats in ever more crowded waters, and sometimes become entangled in fishing nets.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/west-indian-manatee/