Emma's Earth Explorations

  This post only exists because of a critical error I made in the last post. Cheers to fact checking. Ok, I know I said that there would be two Blanket Octopus posts, but I changed my mind (see here ). All the info is now in one post. Anyways, while I was reading back on the Blanket Octopus, I realized that I said the Portuguese Man-of-War was a jellyfish.  Which is wrong. It's actually a siphonophore.  Which looks exactly like a jellyfish.  Which is why I wanted to create this post. There are over 200 different species of jellyfish in the world, and around half of those species have been found in the Great Barrier Reef. These beautiful, ethereal creatures have always seemed to come from a different world to me. Glowing orbs of light, floating serenely at bottomless depths—like the ocean's angels. Except these angles are quite dangerous and quite capable of killing. Here, I'm going to spotlight some of what I think are the Great Barrier Reef's most fascinating species o

  The ocean is this queen's runway, and we're just lucky to witness her glide down it.    Blanket Octopus :   Tremoctopus  Finally we find an animal where DNA determines females get the flashy traits and not  the males. When it comes to survival, it happens to be that males typically have brighter feathers or a red balloon under his neck or some other supposedly attractive trait to guarantee his flashy traits get passed down. I mean, even humans make the list. Why is it that every single guy I know has better eyelashes than me? Blanket Octopuses are found in the coral reefs of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans' sub-tropical and tropical waters.  There are four kinds of Blanket  Octopuses, which I'll cover in this post, and in all four species, it's the females who have the sunset-colored, billowing capes that give Blanket Octopuses their name.  What's even more shocking than the fact that the ladies finally get to stand out from the crowd is that the males are rea

Known by many names, including the Humphead Wrasse and Napolean Wrasse, this fish is known as a king of the coral reefs.    The Maori Wrasse :   Cheilinus undulatus Description : Reaching up to 2 meters in length and 180 kg in weight, t he Maori Wrasse is the largest species in the Wrasse family. They are easily distinguishable by the hump on their foreheads, which become more prominent with age, as well as their puffy lips. Based on the age and gender of a Maori Wrasse, its color patterns vary from red and orange to yellow and green and blues.  Habitat :  Found in the Indo-Pacific's tropical waters, the Maori Wrasse tends to cling to the temperate-coastal habitats of Australia. Maori Wrasse can inhabit all types of reefs, from rocky reefs by the shore to off-shore reefs reaching depths of 60 meters.  Diet : Maori Wrasse are carnivorous creatures that feed primarily on crustaceans, mollusks, and other benthic creatures. They may even eat smaller fish! Maori Wrasse are significant t