Landlocked Mermaid

As Famous Fish has drawn to a natural close, I thought it would be fun to have a quick look at all the famous fishies we've looked at over the past year. Yeah, year! And to finish this theme in style, I thought we could do a vote to see who has been our favourite! Nemo the Clownfish Notable features: Stripey orange and white body. Live in anemone. Live in social hierarchies where ladies dominate. Threatened due to the popularity of Finding Nemo and climate change. Fun Fact:  When the dominant female is removed, the dominant male will change gender to fill her void. Free Willy the Orca Notable Features: Strident black and white patterns. Opportunistic hunters - they will eat anything that moves. The females live longer than the males. They are very intelligent creatures which do not thrive in captivity. Fun Fact: Despite being called "Killer Whales" they are actually dolphins. The moniker is believed to be an inversion of "Whale Killers" because they, you know, ...

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish June Made on Canva Destiny the Whale Shark The votes are in! A landslide win for Destiny the whale shark! Kingdom: Animalia Class: Chondrichthyes Conservation Status: Endangered (EN) Picture from Scientific American WHAT IS DESTINY? Destiny is a whale shark. Whale sharks cause some confusion: are they a whale or shark? They are sharks with a whale's diet. Simple! Destiny belongs to the largest species of shark and one of three which do not adhere to a typical "shark diet". The other two are basking sharks and megamouth sharks, if you are interested. More on this later. They belong to the family carpet shark which included species such as wobbegongs, nurse sharks, and epaulette sharks. I could honestly get super distracted talking about all these sharks - but some were featured on Sharks @ 7 & 3/4 so go watch those videos! Whale sharks, on average, grow to be around 9.8m (32ft) but there has been a confirmed case of one bein...

Marine Creature of the Month Made using Canva Common Bottlenose Dolphin Our famous fish this month won by a landslide - sorry Squiddy. So let's dive a little deeper and take a look at Flipper! Kingdom: Animalia Class: Mammalia Conservation Status: Least Concern (LE) Picture from Pinterest WHAT IS FLIPPER? Flipper is a dolphin. He is the most dolphin-y dolphin you can get. And I think that is largely down to having a television presence since the sixties! All dolphins are mammals, meaning they breath air and give birth to live pups - and bottlenoses are no exception. Despite having a nose-like snout, they have a blow hole on the top of their head, which is used for breathing. Common bottlenose dolphins are grey and bear all the body features we expect from dolphins. Flippers, check. Dorsal fin, check. Adorable face, double check. They grow between 2 and 4m (6.6 and 13.1ft) and can weigh as much as 650kg (1,340lbs)! For some context, ...