One of the most amazing things about the ocean is the variety of life in all its forms. Estimates put the number of species at 250,000 with an increase rate of 1.5-2% annually, which is great news for ocean ecosystems. Scientists are still discovering marine life, and we’re learning that the diversity of organisms is even greater than before.

Scientists have discovered new organisms that can survive without light or oxygen, and in extreme environments. This proves that there’s a much wider range of life under water than we once thought was possible.

Seventy percent of the world’s animal species lives in water, and the seas and oceans are their home. The diversity of life underwater is amazing because you can find inhabitants of all colours, shapes, and sizes. Some creeps might put you off, only to find another that will surprise you with its beauty.

Before you is not a craft, not an artistic image – but the state emblem of South Australia. The shape of this design is carefully crafted to act as a camouflage for underwater creatures.

Sea dragons are leafy dragons and sea pegasi too, or in scientific terms they are members of the horse family. They differ from other sea creatures in their magnificent plumage, which is due to that they don’t have a shell like other seahorses have.

No, you can’t find them anywhere else. You see, they’re a fish that lives in warm water and they like to hide from curious divers by hiding in shallow water. It’s not hard to understand why. Seeing such beauty, anyone would want to be with someone like that.

The leafy sea dragon (related to seahorses) gets its name due to some similarities with leaves. For Australians, it’s a mystery and a myth, but for divers in New Zealand or the Great Barrier Reef, it’s a common fisherman’s catch. The Giant seahorse is a sea creature that can grow up to 35cm and lives around sea kale forests in the eastern Indian Pacific Ocean. They are found in Spencer Gulf on the South coast of Australia.

This leafy sea dragon has a less famous cousin called the “spiny sea dragon.” They are only found in waters off the coast of New South Wales and they have bald red and yellow outgrowths which make them unsightly to humans.

This kind of creature needs local, natural conditions in order to survive. There are no other predators that he’s vulnerable too, but there is a lot of food – small shrimp and other plankton.

Although it looks unassuming and harmless, the leafy sea dragon is actually a hunter. Its diet consists of shrimp, small fish and other creatures that can’t resist the toothless dragon’s suction. In times of scarcity it has been known to eat algae and marine debris.

Despite their low mobility, these sea dragons are masters at defending themselves from other animals. This is because of the greenish leaf-like feathers on their fins (which act as camouflage against predators). They can swallow up to 3,000 shrimp per day. The dragonfly swings along with the plant, making fish even more difficult for predators to detect.

The sea dragon moves slowly, only 150 meters per hour. This slow motion is due to the fact that the dragon swims exclusively with the help of its two pectoral and dorsal fins, which are completely transparent. Yes, and they sway backwards and forwards once a minute. Anchoring in this way provides the animal with an equalizing effect of smooth swaying on the waves. From a distance, it is very similar to a torn branch of algae.

The male seahorse is perhaps best known for being a caring father and carrying fry in their pouch. Male sea dragons, on the other hand, may not be as fortunate. They do not have bags and so must instead carry fertilized eggs with them at all time and protect them from danger.

Female dragons typically lay between 100 and 120 eggs, which are fertilized and attached to the underside of the male. When ready to mate, they approach one another in a morning ritual that is a bit like a dance with many changes in skin color. It typically takes 4-8 weeks for the birth of small dragons, which are copies of adults. Young growth after birth is completely left to itself and only 5% of newborns will become an adult 2 year old, who forever stay in their native land.

There has been extensive flooding in the area and as a result the population of leafy dragons is at its lowest. Indeed, he is! The Red Book says that we don’t know the exact number of deciduous sea dragons.

Unlike seahorses that cling to the algae with their tail during storm events, leafy dragons do not know how to do this, so when a storm hits, they often wash ashore and die because they have nowhere else to go.

The golden sea dragon is the state emblem of South Australia.

It is already clear that the leafy sea dragon is a master of disguise. This amazing creature can change color to match its surroundings. The look and feel of the surrounding plant life and the food it has consumed will also affect how its color changes!

Scavengers are at risk of extinction in the face of pollution, but they’re also sought after by collectors. To protect them, the Australian government made them a protected species.

The Mint of the Australian city of Perth has just released the second coin in a new series of silver coins titled “Australian Marine Life – Reefs”. The second coin depicts a rag-picker. Coins in denominations of 50 Australian cents are minted from silver 999.

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Flathead are widespread in tropical and temperate seas off the coast of Southeast Asia and Australia, the Indian Ocean, is also in West Africa. They are sedentary bottom fish of coastal and moderately deep waters, they stay on the bottom, relying on the pectoral and pelvic fins. Flatheads – predatory fish, feeding on fish and crustaceans.

Count up to 15-20 genera with 55-60 species of flatheads. There are especially many species off the coast of Australia (33 species), off the Philippine Islands (17 species) and in Japanese waters (10 species).

The Indian flathead (Platycephalus indicus) is particularly common. It is found in coastal waters from Japan to New Guinea and Australia, off the coast of South Asia to the Red Sea and the eastern shores of Africa. It stays on sandy and muddy soils. In Japan, spawning in May. Caviar is pelagic, 1.1-1.25 mm in diameter, with a red oil drop. The fish coloration is dark brown from above and white from below. On the caudal fin, there is a longitudinal black stripe in the middle, up to 50 cm long, and the same oblique stripes above and below it. The maximum size of the flathead is 120 cm and its weight is 15 kg.

In some areas they are numerous and are valuable targets of fisheries, so, for example, in Japan, live fish are supplied to markets in Tokyo. Its meat is especially tasty in spring and summer – during the spawning period, eaten raw, boiled in sauce or fried.

The brown flatfish (Platycephalus fuscus) is one of the important fish in the Australian trawl fishery. The brown and yellow tiger carp (Neoplatycephalus richardsoni), which has strong, sharp teeth, is also a massively valuable commercial species in Australia. It is fished off the coast of South Australia and Tasmania. Also common in South Australia is the spotted flathead (Platycephalus laevigatus), which reaches a length of 50 cm.

Platycephalus laevigatus can be found off the coast from river estuaries to depths of several hundred meters.

Inexperienced divers notice the crocodile fish lying on the bottom is not easy. These sea creatures are very well camouflaged, usually they almost merge with the sandy bottom and if the crocodile fish lies motionless, to see her, to pay attention to her difficult.

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The saber-tooth’s head is large, with massive jaws. The eyes are small, compared to the size of the head. The body is dark brown or almost black, strongly compressed on the sides, and in compensation for the small eyes there is a well-developed lateral line running high on the back of the fish. In the mouth of the fish, two long fangs grow on the lower jaw. In relation to the length of the body, these teeth are the longest of any fish known to science. These teeth are so large that when the mouth is closed they are placed in special grooves on the upper jaw. For this purpose, even the brain of the fish is divided into two parts to make room for the fangs in the skull.

Sharp teeth, curved inside the mouth, cut off the possible escape of the victim at the root. Adult saber-tooths are predators. They prey on small fish and squid. Young ones also filter zooplankton out of the water. In a short period of time, the sabertooth can swallow as much food as it weighs. Despite the fact that not much is known about these fish, we can still conclude that saber-tooths are rather ferocious predators. They keep in small flocks or singly, making vertical migrations at night to hunt. Having had enough of “walking around”, the fish descend to greater depths during the day, resting before the next hunt.

By the way, it is possible that this frequent migration to the upper layers of water explains a good tolerance of low pressure sabertooths. Fish caught near the water surface can live for up to a month in an aquarium in running water.

However, despite their formidable weapons in the form of huge fangs, sabertooths are often preyed upon by larger oceanic fish that descend to deeper water to feed. For example, the remains of sabertooths are routinely found in caught tuna. In this, they are similar to the axefish, which also make up an important part of the tuna’s diet. And the number of finds suggests that the saber-tooth population is quite significant.

Young saber-tooths do not resemble adult fish at all, which is why at first they were even assigned to a different genus. They are triangular in shape and have four spines on the head, for which they were called “horned”. The young have no fangs either, and the coloration is not dark but light brown, and only on the belly there is a large triangular spot, which “stretches” over the whole body.

Sabertooths grow quite slowly. Scientists assume that the fish can reach the age of 10 years.

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Endemic of the Caspian Sea. There are cases of individual animals entering the Volga. Body length is 120-148 cm, weight is about 50-60 kg. The sizes of females and males are about the same. The body coloration is almost monochromatic gray-brown with brown and dark spots. Numerous spots of irregular shape and different sizes are typical for an adult animal.

As in all semi-aquatic animals, the breeding and feeding grounds are sharply differentiated. The Caspian seal is biologically connected with the ice, where it breeds, nurses its pups and molts. The breeding range is conditioned by the ice cover and may vary depending on the ice formation in the western or eastern part of the North Caspian Sea. Seals use land for rookeries as well – shalygs (local name), sandy-shell islands, sea stony ridges. It is found in both shallow and deep waters. Feeding range varies annually according to the distribution of food organisms, cod. When obtaining food can dive to a depth of 80 m. The food is based on gregarious fish species, mainly sprat, about 1% of the seal’s diet consists of crustaceans. Every year, the Caspian seal undertakes movements from north to south in late spring and back from south to north in early autumn.

The animals migrate mostly in sparse, sparse groups. There are probably no permanent routes to the south and back to the north. They reach sexual maturity at 5-7 years of age. Breeding intervals are 2-3 years. Pregnancy lasts about 11 months. The female brings one puppy in her litter, twins are extremely rare. Lives up to 50 years. In winter, early spring, and late autumn, the Caspian seal migrates to the northern part of the sea, where it forms clusters on the ice, moulting and shedding, and in autumn enters the mouths of the Volga and Ural, up to Volgograd and upstream of the Ural River for 200 km, moving to the south in spring. It is kept in herds. It is threatened with extinction. One of the main negative factors leading to the reduction of the species is marine pollution.

At Obzhorovsky and Damchiksky sectors of the Reserve single Caspian seals are occasionally spotted in spring and autumn during their migrations behind fish shoals going to the branches of the Volga River for spawning and wintering. They are found not only in the avandelta water area of the Reserve, but also in the channels.

History of extinction
In nature, the Caspian seal has no natural enemies except man. The seal first appeared in the official register of game animals in 1740, but scientists began to collect the most complete data on the seal hunt – and its approximate population – only a century later.

Until the early XIX century the seal population was estimated at 160 thousand, and from the mid-20s to mid-50s approximately 100 thousand heads of seals per year. From 1867 to 1915, 115,000 carcasses per year were harvested. The population suffered most of all in the 1930s when the number of the Caspian seal decreased sharply from one million to 500 thousand due to hunting. Further the seals continued to slowly die in the nets of poachers and from other not so obvious reasons, until in the 90s of the last century they started talking about the necessity to save the population of endemics.

In the past 20 years of the XXI century mass death of seals has been observed several times, and to date the population numbers no more than 70 thousand individuals.

In 2000 about 30 thousand of Caspian seals were lost, and over 10 thousand carcasses were found on the coast of the country alone – this is the largest documented seal kill in the region. Later there were not so mass deaths, however, the dynamics is negative, as it is proved by another discovery of about 300 carcasses of dead animals on the Dagestan coast in December last year. One of the possible causes of pinniped death was later named as the emission of natural gas.

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