Jessica Simmons
Biology 112 Paper
Trevor Rundle
Due: 08 May 2017
Marine Life
Many people know the earth is a ginormous piece of land. Millions of humans and
animals live on this world. With the addition to everything on earth the ocean covers a big
amount of earth. With the ocean comes thousands different types of animals living in the
waters. Over 1 million known species of plants and animals live there, and scientists say there
may be as many as 9 million species we haven’t discovered yet. Some people know the
common type of animals, however not many know all types of species living in the ocean. The
goal of this paper is to educate one’s mind on how broad the ocean is.
They’re several types of categorized groups of sea animals which include Arthropods,
Cnidarians, Echinoderms, Hemichordates, Lophophorates, Mollusks, Sponges, and Worms. Then
there are groups of animals that typically everyone is familiar with, Marine Birds, Marine
Reptiles, Sharks & Rays, Marine Mammals, Seals & Sea Lions, Polar Bears, Sea Otters, Whales &
Dolphins. Each group of animals are unique in their own way.
Arthropods is an animal having an exoskeleton, segmented body and a jointed
appendage. Their body plan had repeated segments, and each has a pair of appendages. Their
body can be compare to a Swiss Army knife. Their sizes very from microscopic creatures to a
few meters long. Types of animals are horseshoe crabs, sea spiders, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and
barnacles. Sea spiders are most found on shores, and reefs. At night is when they become super
active. They feed on small crustaceans or whatever they can handle with their mouths. Their
bodies are greyish with a pink tinge, about 1 cm long, with furry legs. Their feet can prevent
themselves from breaking the water surface tension.
Cnidarians are diverse in their form and the simplest of all organisms. Cnidarians include
sea anemones, corals, sea pens, jellyfish, box jellies, and hydrozoans. They are armed with
stinging cells, called nematocysts. They use their tips of stingers to capture and subdue their
pray. A lot of Cnidarians stringers are not harmful to humans, the sting cannot penetrate
humans’ skin. However, some are very painful to humans. They have two different body types,
polypoid or medusoid. In polypoid the tentacles and mouth are facing up, and the other side is
attached to other their colony or other animals. With medusoid, the animal is upside-down and
so is their tentacles and mouth. With Cnidarians, there are three groups of its type, Hydrozoans
