Please Help Me, I am Under The Water

Heya, welcome back to my blog. I hope that everyone has some exciting or relaxing plans for this weekend, because I know I do. I am going to a friend's birthday party back home and it's gonna be real fun, hopefully not like Halloween that one time, but I digress. I was having a tough time coming up with something to write about but then after a few mindless hours of scrolling through the internet I somehow turned my feed into strictly ocean and marine animals, so I thought I would make a small list of my favorite ocean critters. For the sake of this blog, I will be excluding marine mammals because I already know that there is a huge following for seals, sea lions, walruses, and all of the different species of whales and dolphins. So, it's strictly critters from here.

The Cuttlefish 

[From Colossal]

Cuttlefish fall under the family of cephalopods, which includes octopus, squids, and nautiluses. These are highly intelligent creatures, not to mention kind of silly looking, but just like octopi, these guys can change the texture and color of their skin at will as a defense mechanism, however they also use it for communication and mating. When a Giant Australian Cuttlefish is courting another female cuttlefish, the male displays a mesmerizing pattern of colors on one half of their body that is facing the female, while the other half is displaying a vibrant red color as a warning to other males who may be competing for her attention.

[From NBC news]

This isn't the only type of cuttlefish, there are actually many different ones, just like how there are many different species of squid or octopus. One of my favorites is the Flamboyant Cuttlefish because of its vibrant and distinct colors, and the name is kinda funny too…

[from Monterey Bay Aquarium]

The Nautilus 

[From Wikipedia]

This is a really cool little guy. "Why?" you may ask. Well, it's because he has a neat looking shell and is the only current cephalopod with a true external shell that isn't extinct. Compared to the other living cephalopod species–who are highly intelligent–the Nautilus, is unfortunately quite dumb, but that's just what's so charming about this little fella. Nautilus have extremely bad eyesight and almost rely entirely on their sense of smell in order to get food, meaning they're largely opportunistic scavengers, where the only thing that they might hunt is small crustaceans. Fun fact about these guys is that they have up to 90 tentacles, which is the most out of any other cephalopod.

The Horseshoe Crab

[From Friends of Animals]

One of the most well-known facts about the horseshoe crab is that it is God's perfect creature and was made in his image. There is very strong evidence to suggest this as the Horseshoe Crab–which isn't even a crustacean by the way, it's a marine arthropod–hasn't changed or evolved new or more “optimal” characteristics in nearly 450 million years. Meaning that the build of this little dude is so efficient that there has been no need for it to change to adapt to the environment, as it is already perfectly suited for what it does. One cool fact about these guys is that if one horseshoe crab gets flipped on its back and another one is nearby, it will try to flip over and help the one that's stuck.

The Moray Eel  

[From the ANAGARI Foundation]

For some this is very understandable nightmare fuel as these eels are depicted as highly aggressive, with a mouth full of broken glass that's able to slice right through you, and they're huge… However, these dangerous ocean pool noodles are deeply misunderstood and, in my opinion, deserve as much love and respect as any other ocean creature. A diver named Valerie Taylor over years of consistently visiting and offering it fish, befriended a moray eel to the point where it would even swim up to her when it saw her in the area. It points toward a greater intelligence than initially perceived in these animals, who are capable of building connections and relationships across species, which is so endearing especially when it's a stereotypically “aggressive” creature. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IQ2I-P8Ucw