Ocean Animal Fun Facts
When a dolphin is sick or injured, its cries of distress summon immediate aid from other dolphins, who try to support it to the surface so that it can breathe.
The sailfish, the swordfish and the mako shark have all been clocked at swimming over 80 km/hr.
Dolphins sleep with one half of the brain at a time, and one eye open.
Oysters can change from one gender to another and back again depending on which is best for mating.
A dolphin's hearing is so acute that it can pick up an underwater sound from 24 kilometres away.
The common goldfish is the only animal that can see both infra-red and ultra-violet light.
Blue Whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as three Greyhound buses.
Lobsters can live up to 50 years.
By swallowing water, the Pufferfish becomes too big for other fish to swallow.
Great White Sharks can go as long as three months without eating.
A group of jelly fish is called a smack.
Left to their own devices, pearls grow naturally only once in every 20 000 oysters.
A shrimp's heart is in their head.
The Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, lays up to 5 000 000 eggs at one time.
A scallop has 35 blue eyes.
It can take a deep-sea clam up to 100 years to reach 8 millimetres in length. The clam is among the slowest growing, yet longest living species on the planet.
Catfish have 100 000 taste buds.
A female oyster over her lifetime may produce over 100 million young.
The largest eggs in the world are laid by a shark.
If a lobster loses a claw or an eye, it is usually able to grow another, although the new one is usually smaller.
Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of the water. They frequently rise to the surface for air.
Shrimp can only swim backwards.
Using its web-like skin between its arms, an octopus can carry up to a dozen crabs back to its den.
Electric Eels can reach up to 2 metres in length and larger specimens can generate 500 volts of electricity.
A blue whale's tongue is so large that fifty people could stand on it.
Dolphins jump out of the water to conserve energy. It's easier to move through the air than through the water.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.
A baby grey whale drinks enough milk to fill more than 2000 bottles a day.
The heart of a blue whale is the size of a small car.
Giant cuttlefish have green blood.
Fish can’t close their eyes. They have no eyelids.
Fish never stop growing. The older they get the bigger they grow.
Fish have cold blood.
Lobsters have blue blood.
Fish have a balloon inside their body to help them float.
Crabs have no bones. Their shell is their skin and their bones.
Crabs have eyes on sticks. They can move their eyes in any direction.
When a crab loses a claw, another one grows in its place.
The seahorse is the fish that swims the slowest.
A dugong is a sea cow.
Whales breathe out of the blowhole that is on top of their head.
Octopuses are excellent climbers. They have suction cups under their tentacles that help them stick to everything.
Lobsters are excellent swimmers and they use their fanned tails to move forwards and backwards.
As a loggerhead turtle grows older its head grows bigger.
Fish sleep behind rocks or seaweed.
Sea urchins have their mouth underneath their body.
Octopus can change their colour.
The whale shark is the largest fish in the sea.
Shark's teeth are shaped like triangles or daggers.
A seahorse is a fish.
A sea horse moves its back fin so fast that it looks like a little spinning pinwheel.
Seahorses are the only animals in the entire animal kingdom in which the male has babies. The female seahorse deposits the eggs into the male's small pouch, these eggs are then fertilized by the male.
The seahorse sucks food into its mouth with is shaped like a straw.
Sea sponges have no head, mouth, eyes, feelers, bones, heart, lungs or brain - yet they are alive.
Sea sponges can be as tiny as a pea or a big as a cow.
No matter how many pieces you cut a sea sponge into each piece will go on living and growing.
Oysters make cement to attach themselves to rock or coral.
As clams grow, their shells grow with them.
The biggest starfish is the sunflower star, it has more than 26 arms.
The starfish has an eye at the tip of each arm.
The starfish turns its stomach inside out and brings it out through its mouth. This it wraps its stomach around the food and pulls it back inside after the food is digested.
A starfish can grow a whole new body from just one arm.
Pearls are made from sand.
Octopuses and squids squirt black ink.
Octopuses swim by shooting water out behind them. Just like letting a balloon go that is filled up with air.
Octopuses are shy animals that live in caves at the bottom of the sea.
Octopuses jaws are as tough as a parrot's beak.
Starfish have sticky feet that help them walk along underwater.
Sharks have tiny brains - they aren't very clever.
The dwarf shark is the smallest shark, it's about as big as your hand.
Catfish have sharp spines in their fins. These spines stick into any creature that handles or tries to swallow the catfish.
Flying fish have an amazing pair of fins that fan out and look like wings.
Seahorses swim with their head up and tail down.
The hammerhead shark has a head shaped like the letter T.
Bull Sharks can live in rivers and the ocean.