PENGUINS

These funny sea birds inhabit the icy seas of the southern hemisphere, and they are true masters of ceremony at the Lisbon Oceanarium. Visit them there, and have fun watching their daily routine and courtship rituals.These excellent and graceful swimmers, although they have wings, do not fly

Magellanic Penguin	Southern Rockhopper Penguin	Adélia Penguim
group of Emperor Penguins	couple of Emperor Penguin with baby	baby Emperor Penguins

SEAHORSE

Seahorses are tiny fish that are named for the shape of their head, which looks like the head of….yup, you guessed it -a tiny horse. They swim upright, and they are the only fish that has a tail, which comes in handy when these cool animals want to anchor themselves to vegetation or to objects.

Seahorses look quite different from other fish, they are unique. They have no scales, just a thin skin stretched over bony rings. They can change their shape and colour to blend in with their surroundings.

Seahorses are the only creature where the male has a pregnancy: The female seahorse transfers the egg into the male pouch where he self-fertilizes the eggs. Baby seahorses are known as fry. They live on their own after birth.

Seahorses live in temperate and tropical waters all around the world, and they prefer areas where they can find cover from predators, like coral reefs, seagrass beds, and places where rivers meet the sea that are thick with cover for these defenceless creatures. Seahorses are so bony they don’t have many predators. Penguins are their main natural predator. The main concern for seahorses are humans.

Seahorse	Big-belly seahorse	Dwarf seahorse	Seahorse
Long-snouted seahorse	New Holland seahorse	Leafy seadragon	Flat-faced seahorse

CORAL

Corals live in all the oceans of the world. Some types live alone. Many types live together in groups called colonies. Several different types of corals together can form enormous colonies, the famous coral reefs. The largest coral reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. Coral can be stony or soft. Even though it looks like a plant, coral is an invertebrate animal that belongs to the celenteres just like sea anemones. As it resembles a flower, coral is also named flower animal.

The body of a coral is called a polyp. The polyp is a hollow structure that attaches to a surface to hold it in place, the way roots hold a tree in the ground. At the top of the polyp is a mouth surrounded by tentacles that bring small sea animals to the mouth. Just like you have relatives, coral is related to jellyfish, and it too can even sting, because its tentacles also have stingers that paralyze, or freeze.

Cactus coral	Finger coral	Leafplate coral
Devil's hand coral	Cabbage leather coral	True coral

STARFISH

Starfish are not really fish. They are marine invertebrate animals belonging to the echinoderms. They have a hard skeleton, and a spiny skin. A common starfish has 5 arms, called rays that come out from a center circle (disk). If a starfish has more than five rays, it will often have rays in multiples of five. They can drop their arms to escape, and then grow them back. Starfish are carnivores meaning they are meat eaters. Starfish can come in many different colours and patterns.

Red starfish	Bat star	Crown-of-thorns starfish
Red comb star	Sunflower seastar	Purple seastar

SEA OTTER

The sea otter is a carnivorous mammal that belongs to the same family as weasels and badgers and lives both on land and in the sea. The sea otter is a very clean animal that spends a large part of its time cleaning its skin, licking it, in order to develop the natural production of oil that together with its thick underfur will protect it from the cold.

It feeds especially on molluscs and also on fish. It is a very smart animal, capable of using a stone as a tool to open molluscs.

The otter is a very curious and playful animal, however it is shy in contact with men, who have hunted them for their fur to the point of near extinction. The sea otter can live up to 15 years, and when it reproduces it has only one calf, which can be born in water or on land.

Sea otters

SEA URCHIN

Like the starfish, the sea urchin is an echinoderm. The body is spiny and the most common colour is black, but it also exists in shades of green, brown, purple, blue and red. Sea urchins are animals that move slowly, using retractable feet. They feed mainly on detritus, algae and a wide variety of other small invertebrates, such as clams/span><.

Sea urchin	Purple sea urchin	Red sea urchin

SEAGULLS

Seagulls may exhibit different colours but they are usually grey or white in colour, with black markings on their wings and heads. Known for their squawking calls, seagulls have long wings and are medium to large marine birds. As such, they have webbed feet. Their bills are strong because seagulls are carnivores and eat live food as well as plants and scavenge opportunistically.

Seagulls mate for life, and during mating the male Seagulls mate for life, and during mating the male brings the female food. Sea gulls make nests simply by hollowing out a soft spot in the sand. They try to choose an area near grass, rocks or logs for protection. After chicks hatch, one parent stays with the nest all the time. The other parent brings food.

Seagulls are very intelligent birds, and they have been around for more than 30 million years. The wild population of seagulls is large and stable. They are not endangered.

Sabias que

Seagull	Seagulls	Flock of seagulls

OCTOPUS

The octopus is a marine mollusc, a group to which limpets also belong, as well as non-marine animals such as snails and slugs. Most octopuses are small, but there are also large octopuses in the Pacific Ocean. They are unattractive beings, have two large protruding eyes and eight tentacles, each with two rows of suction cups.

The octopus feeds on crustaceans which it grabs with its strong suction cups. When pursued or attacked by sharks and other predators, the octopus releases a dark ink that turns the water muddy and thus hides it.

Giant Pacific octopus

Southern blue-ringed octopus

Common octopus