Prehistoric Marine

Learn all about the marine animals of the past! Read about an amphibious fish, a 30 meter long shark, an armoured fish, and much more!!! You can learn about these following animals:

-Ammonite

-Leedsichthys

-Dunkleosteus

-Megalodon

-Liopleurodon

-Hyneria

-Giant Orthocone

-Giant Mosasaur

-Anomalocaris

-Nothosaurus

-Cymbospondylus

Enjoy the new facts you will learn!!!

Cymbospondylus

Cymbospondylus was an early ichthyosaur that lived in during the Triassic Period.

They were one of the largest ichthyosaurs. It was different from other ichthyosaurs. It had a dorsal fin and a flaked tail. But it had an elongated snout like the others. It ate small to medium sized fish, belemnites, and cephalopods (ammonites). The long tail made it a fast swimmer.

These are very interesting animals!!!

Nothosaurus

Nothosaurus is an extinct sauropterygian reptile from the Triassic Period.

It was about 4 meters (13 feet) long. It had teeth like needles. It hunted by slowly approaching sneakily then putting on a last-minute burst of speed. It had very similar features to plesiosaurs.

These were very interesting animals!!!  

Anomalocaris

Anomalocaris are prehistoric animals that are closely related to arthropods. They were the first marine super predator. They lived in the Cambrian seas.

It swam by propelling itself through the water by making wave-like motions with their flexible lobes on the side of their body. It at least 11 lobes in total. It had very large compound eyes on stalks that had at least 16 000 individual lenses. It's mouth had a disc-like mouth. It had sharp, jagged prongs. Their were probably gills on top of each lobe. It reached up to 2 meters in length.

They fed on hard-bodied animals such as trilobites.

These were very interesting animals of the past!!!

  

Giant Mosasaur

The Giant Mosasaur is a prehistoric animal that is also known as Tylosaurus. They are very dangerous.

They could reach up to 8-12 meters in length. It was the dominant predator of the Late Cretaceous seas. They fed on fish (Xiphactinus and sharks), sea birds, and other reptiles like Archelon (prehistoric giant sea turtles), plesiosaurs, and other species of smaller mosasaurs. 

They were very dangerous animals!!!  

Giant Orthocone

The giant orthocone was a nautilus that looked like a squid in a cone. They existed 470 million years ago during the Ordivician Period. They were the top predator of there times. They lived in deep waters. They used their tentacles to crush up their prey. Their tentacle length measured up to 6 feet long. It ate everything that it could counting sea scorpions.

Giant Orthocones were very slow and very slow to turn so their prey had to stay on it's shell side for their survival.

Giant Orthocones are probably the biggest nautilus ever!!!

  

Hyneria

  

Hyneria was a prehistoric predatory fish that lived in the Devonian Period about 360 million years ago.

The estimation of the length was 2, 3, or 4 meters. It's weight could have been 2 tons. There was a theory that it's fins were so strong it could haul itself onto land!

Hyneria is a species of lobe-finned fish.

Hyneria are very dangerous fish from the past!!!

Liopleurodon

    

Liopleurodon was a carnivorous marine reptile. It was a short-necked plesiosaur. It lived in the Middle Jurassic Period.

The liopleurodon had four limbs which were used like paddles suggests that it was a powerful swimmer. It could have been an ambush predator.

The estimation of the length was 10.5 meters (34 feet) long.

This was the most dangerous marine predator of the Middle Jurassic Period seas that covered Europe!!!

Megalodon

Megalodon was a prehistoric extinct species of sharks. They lived from 28-1.5 million years ago. It has the strongest bite ever. Megalodon was like a much stronger and much bigger Great White Shark.

The estimation of the megalodon was 30 meters (98 feet).

They fed on cetaceans (dolphins and small whales), large whales, pinnipeds, porpoises, sirenians, and giant sea turtles.

These are probably the largest sharks of all time!!!

Dunkleosteus

Dunkleosteus was a prehistoric fish. It was one of the largest artrodire placoderms ever to live durind the Late Devonian period about 380-360 million years ago. It measured up to 10 meters (33 feet). It's weight was 3.6 tonnes (4.0 short tons). They were large, carnivorous, and dangerous predators. 

It was a powerful swimmer. It was cannibalistic. It was an armoured fish. They didn't have any teeth so instead they had two sharp bony plates, it had a beak-like structure. It had the second most powerful bite of any fish in the world (the megalodon had the strongest bite).


These are very interesting powerful, terrifying, and armoured creatures from the past!!!

Leedsichthys

Leedsichthys was a gigantic pachycormid that lived in the oceans in the Late Jurassic period.

It had over 40,000 teeth to collect small animals from the water. It's size can go up to 27 meters. It had giant mesh plates on the back of it's mouth.

It's predators include the Liopleurodon, Metriorhynchus, and Hybodus sharks.

It was not a huge predator. It only ate small fish, jellyfish, shrimp, and plankton.

Leedsichthys is the world’s biggest fish ever!!! The estimation of the length was 30 feet (around 9 meters).

This prehistoric marine creature is unique because it is the biggest fish in the world!!!

Ammonite

Ammonites were amazing marine cephalpod molluscs! They are prehistoric creatures.

They have a spiraled shell. Inside, there is the tentacled animal that lived there, the ammonite. They lived in seas from at least 400-65 million years ago. They are closely related to octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and Nautilus.

Ammonites first appeared in the early Devonian period when there were dinosaurs. They evolved from a none spiraled but straight shelled Bactridian. It evolved into a lot of different shape and sizes. The species were gone and extinct in the Cretaceous period. First ammonites were tiny creatures less than 1 millimeter in diameter creatures. They were vulnerable and could not protect themselves too well against their predators including mosasaurs and fish. When their shells changed and got the spiral figure they got bigger and turned into predator themselves. They got eaten too of coarse.

These are very interesting animals and have unique features!!!

Crustacean unit

Now we are starting a whole new unit about crustaceans. Learn lot's of new stuff about these amazing, shelled, aquatic, and land animals. This unit will have the following animals:

-California convexus

-Lysmata debelius

-American Lobster

-California Spiny Lobster

-Kelp Crabs

-Japanese Spider Crabs

-Fiddler Crabs

-Asian Shore Crabs

-Sponge Crabs

-Halloween Crabs

If you read this you will find out loads of new facts about the crustaceans.

Carpilius convexus

Carpilius convexus is a specie of crabs that is found living in the Indo-Pacific, from Hawaii to the Red Sea and South Africa. This species are poorly known and does not have much facts.

Lysmata debelius

Lysmata debelius is a specie of cleaner shrimp that live in the Indo-Pacific.

They can grow up to 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) long. The males and females are similar unlike other animals. It has a red body with pale white antennae. It has white tips on the third to fifth pereiopods and white dots on the cephalothorax and the legs.

These are marvelous little creatures. 

American Lobster

The American lobster (Homarus americanus), is a specie of lobster located in the Atlantic Coast of North America. In North America it is also called the northern lobster or the Marine lobster. It can have a body length of 64 centimeters (25 inches) and a weight of 20 kilograms (44 pounds). It is the heaviest crustacean in the world!!! American lobsters are bluish-green to brown with red on the spines.
This lobster can reach to a length of 8-24 inches (200-610 millimeters) and can have a weight of 1-9 pounds (0.45-4.1 kilograms), but has been known that it could lengths over 3 feet (0.91 millimeters) and can have a weight of 44 pounds (20 kilograms). It is the heaviest marine crustacean in the world. It is closely related to the European lobster (Homarus gammarus).

The antennae of it measures approximately 2 inches (51 millimeters) long and splits into a Y shape with pointed, sharp points.

The first pair of legs also known as the pereiopods is armed large but not equivalent pairs of claws. The larger one is called the "crusher" named after it's job to crush it's prey. It has rounded nodules. The smaller one is called the "cutter" named after it's job too. It has sharp inner edges that can hol or tear up it's prey.

The normal colour of the American lobster is dark bluish to greenish-brown, mostly redder on the body and claws anf greener on the legs. There are blue lobsters because they have a genetic mutation. If you find a yellow lobster, they are yellow because they have a rare genetic mutation. There are albino lobsters too. They are very rare. There are multicoloured  lobsters too that have an orange and black shell. There are other combinations of colours for lobsters such as brown and orange lobsters.

American lobster like to live in cold and shallow waters with many rock near the area. They use the rocks to hide from predators. It mostly lives in a depths of 4-5 meters ( 13-160 feet), but can live up to 480 meters (1570 feet) below the surface. They are nocturnal. There food chain includes fish, small crustaceans, and mollusks.

California Spiny Lobster

The California  Spiny Lobster (Panulirus interruptus) is a specie of the spiny lobster found in the eastern Pacific Ocean from Monterey Bay, California and to the Gulf of Tehuantepec in Mexico. It usually grows to a length of 30 centimeters (12 inches). It is reddish-brown. It displays stripes along it's legs. It has a pair of large antennae and doesn't have any claws.

The female California spiny lobsters can carry up to 680,000 eggs. They hatch after 10 weeks and they come out as flat phyllosoma larvae. They eat plankton. The adults are nocturnal  and migratory and they live among rocks at depths up to 65 meters (213 feet). They feed on sea urchins, clams, mussels, and worms. Various types of fish enjoy eating the California spiny lobsters. Fish of many types, octopuses, and sea otters are the California spiny lobster's predators. 

Like all spiny lobsters the California spiny lobster has a pair of enlarged antennae but do not have claws. The California spiny lobsters are one of the biggest spiny lobsters.They grow up to 60 centimeters (24 inches) long. Males can weigh 12 kilograms (26 pounds). Unlike other spiny lobsters they have a reddish-brown top and doesn't show the paler bands or white spots. Mature female have a small claw on the last pereiopod the fifth one and has enlarged pleopods.

The California spiny lobster are found in some areas in the Gulf of California, and along the Pacific Coast of the length of the Baja California Peninsula that extends as far north as San Luis Obispo Bay, California. They live on rocky substrates at depths up to 65 meters ( 213 feet) or you could find them in shallow water including tide pools. They are more often in deeper water.

The California spiny lobster is nocturnal so at day they sleep and hide from predators while at night the feed on sea urchins, clams, mussels, and worms. It's predators include the California sheephead, giant sea bass, the cabezone, and sharks including the horn shark and leopard shark, and other animals like octopuses and sea otters. The California sheephead is a major predator to the California spiny lobster.            

Sea Anemone

Sea anemones are a group of aquatic mollusks, the animals of the order of Actiniaria. They are in the phylum Cnidaria, because they are cnidarians, sea anemones are closely related to corals, jellyfish, and Hydra.

Sea Anemones are polyps attached to the seabed and rocks. Most of them are 1.8-3 centimeters (0.71-1.2 inches), but there are very small ones that are as small as 4 millimeters (0.16 inches) and very large ones as big as 2 meters (6.6 feet)! They can have tens and hundreds of tentacles. A few species are not attached to the seabed or rocks and instead have a gas chamber inside the pedal disc that allows them to be afloat. The mouth is the part of the body that is surrounded by the tentacles. The cnidae that stings the aggressor or prey are called nematocysts, each nematocysts has a small vesicle that is filled with toxins. Toxins are an inner filament, and an external sensory hair. When anything touches it, it triggers the cell explosion, a harpoon-like structure sticks onto the organism that was attacking it or the prey and triggers poison into it. That’s what gives the sea anemone a sticky texture. The sea anemone’s food chain includes small fish and shrimp.

You may find these in little tide pools and if you stick your finger in it you will feel a little sting.