A male whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium.

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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 that inhabit 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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An example of a marine worm, the Parborlasia corrugatus lives at depths of up to 4,000 metres.

Any worm that lives in a marine environment is considered a water worm. Marine worms are found in several different phyla, including the Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Annelida (segmented worms), Chaetognatha, Hemichordata, and Phoronida. For a list of marine animals that have been called "sea worms", see sea worm. (Full article...)

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  • ... whale and dolphin mothers ‘suckle’ their young underwater! Mothers have muscular mammary glands and ‘squirt’ their milk into the calf’s mouth, to ensure that the calf takes in as much of the energy rich milk as possible.
  • ... the Humpback Whales song is produced by them forcing air through their massive nasal cavities
  • ... The name shark may have originated from the Mayan word for shark, xoc, pronounced "shock" or "shawk".
  • ... The insides of the sharks intestines are spiral shaped. Because of this, some sharks have spiral-shaped droppings.
  • ... Although sharks can hear sound, they rarely make a noise.
  • ... Qi Qi was the name of one of several captive Baijis held at the Wuhan Institute in China in an attempt to rescue the species.

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

The Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil. It is the most numerous of the Spheniscus penguins. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Humboldt Penguin and the Galápagos Penguin.

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