Marine Animals on Pitara Kids Network

A Fish with Three Hearts: Cuttlefish

Mon, 18 Mar 2002 05:06:42 +0000

It is said to be a royal among sea animals because it has blue blood, literally. And the cuttlefish has a large heart. Actually, it is not one but three hearts.

And it is not even a fish but belongs to the same family as the squid and the octopus. They are called the cephalopods, which literally translated means head-foot.

The blood of the cuttlefish is blue because of the huge amount of copper in it. While it uses two of its hearts to pump blood into the gills (the lung of the fish) where it absorbs oxygen, the third heart pumps blood into the other organs.

Can a Fish be an Amphibian?

Wed, 17 Oct 2001 21:17:23 +0000

The fish actually looks like it was cursed by a fairy to turn into a frog and the curse stopped working half way! It is called the mudskipper. Because it lives in swamps and estuaries with mud banks. An estuary is a place where a river meets the sea.

It can crawl and jump over land too. It actually has a rollicking time jumping over mud!
No wonder it is called the mudskipper! The mudskippers are probably the most land adapted of fish, and are able to spend days moving about out of water.

Do Whales and Dolphins see Blue?

Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:30:16 +0000

Dolphins and whales live in the deep blue sea, but strangely these animals are not able to see the colour blue!

Leo Peichl of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and his colleagues discovered during routine tests that seals do not respond to the blue colour. Intrigued, they carried out similar tests on few other species, such as dolphins and whales, and found the same results.

According to fossil evidence, whales are believed to have descended from a four-legged primitive ungulate (hoofed mammal) which lived on land and was similar to the modern day hippopotamus. Like the hippopotamus the whales come to the surface for breathing to this day. However, tests carried out on hippopotamuses and river otters (close relatives of seals) showed that both species are receptive to the blue color.

An Octopus as Jar-opener

Wed, 22 May 2002 12:46:10 +0000

Try opening a bottle of jam. See how skilfully your fingers wrap around the lid and unscrew it?

Now researchers at the Brighton University, United Kingdom, are carrying out an interesting study to see if the octopus, too, has the same skill. Makes sense considering it has so many ‘hands’ or tentacles!

The scientists have even made a gigantic glass aquarium, specially designed for the resident pet octopus, in the university laboratory. They have named it Roger, after the British actor Roger Moore who acted as James Bond in the Hollywood film

The Portuguese man-of-war belongs to a group of jelly-like animals called s...

Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:25:03 +0000