Landlocked Mermaid

  Bruce and Chum are back! They blame their yearly migration habits for not posting since July. It's definitely that and not the fact I cannot hold a routine for more than three days. Here's who my plushie friends met on their travels! Drop a comment if you can guess where they went travelling to. Name: Tope Shark Location: Global, particularly Europe Habitat: Coastal waters, temperate climates Diet: Pelagic fish and cephalopods; juveniles eat benthic invertebrates Conservation Status: Critically Endangered (CR)     Bruce thinks...   Tope sharks are pretty neat, but their name is a little confusing. They are also called School sharks, Soupfin sharks, Snapper sharks, and Vitamin sharks. Not sure why they have so many names - apart from Vitamin shark. That name comes from the fact that their flesh, fins, and liver are all high in vitamin A. Maybe if I eat one, I'll be able to see in the dark. Chum says...   Tope sharks are big travellers like Bruce and I. One was ...

Bruce and Chum are back! They are taking over Marine Creature of the Month and making it their own. So, enough of my waffle already - I shall hand it over to my plushie friends. Name: Steller Sea Lion Location: Subarctic, from Alaska to Russia Habitat: Coastal waters, temperate climates Diet: Fish and cephalopods Conservation Status: Near Threatened (NT)     Bruce thinks...   These sea lions taste stellar! Get it?! They may be carnivores, themselves, but that won't stop me, other great whites, orcas, and sleeper sharks having a nibble. Chum says...   Stellar Sea Lions are very territorial. It's probably a good thing they like to live on isolated islands, the ladies can weigh anywhere between 240kg and 350kg! The males? They are 450kg to 1,120kg! For some context, I weigh about 10g... Ten Jawsome Facts The pups are born entirely black and weigh about 23kg. Their Latin name, Eumetopias jubatus , roughly translates to "maned one with the broad forehead". With a thick la...

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, ...

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish: Sykes Picture from Pinterest Puffer Fish   You have spoken! Thank you all for voting, your winner is Sykes from A Sharks Tale , the puffer fish. If anyone is home schooling at the moment, here is your next biology lesson sorted! Kingdom: Animalia Class: Actinopterygii Conservation Status: Not Extinct (NE) WHAT IS SYKES? Sykes is a caricature of Martin Scorsese in fish format, otherwise known as a puffer fish. They belong to the Tetraodontidae family and are related to several similar species of fish, such as globefish, swellfish, and (my favourite) sugar toads. Most species of puffer are toxic and are poisonous if consumed. They are famous for this, puffer fish poison has been the murder weapon in many TV shows. It is also a method of murder in the Sims 4 , if that's the way you like to play life simulators! Their scientific name, however, is for their teeth rather than their toxic qualities. They have four la...

Marine Creature of the Month Famous Fish: Jaws Poster from arthipo Great White Shark   As March is my Birthday Month (yes, I milk it for that long) I thought it was high time I covered the OG Famous Fish on #MCotM.  Photo from Oceana Kingdom: Animalia Class: Chrondrichthyes Conservation Status: Vulnerable WHAT IS JAWS? Thanks to the 1975 blockbuster, Jaws , the great white shark is possibly one of the most famous sharks swimming about in the ocean. It belongs to the Mackerel Shark family, which also contains basking sharks, goblin sharks, and thresher sharks. Great whites are known for their size, being among the biggest sharks alive today. Females are larger than the males, averaging at 4m (13ft) for the males and 4.9m (16ft) for the females. Certain specimens have been known to grow as large as 6m (20ft), like the one living off the coast of Mexico known as Deep Blue .  Like all sharks, great white skeletons are made out of ca...