An Amazing Human

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Ric O'Barry (Richard Barry O'Feldman)

This guy is the brain behind the most notorious dolphin ever trained, Flipper. He was known as the best dolphin trainer in existence  until his dolphin committed suicide right before his eyes. O'Barry had gone out to train the captive dolphin (Kathy- one of Flipper's actors) one day and found her in his pool with near black skin from sunburn. The dolphin looked her trainer in the eyes, took a breath and sunk to the bottom of the pool. O'Barry jumped in trying to save her but didn't succeed.

He'd felt so bad about it that he went around releasing any captive dolphins he could and was arrested the next day for doing so.

Ric O'Barry's co-written three books and released captive dolphins in Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, The Bahamas and around the U.S.

He puts his life at risk most days to save the dolphin population, as shown in "The Cove", and doesn't think twice about it. Now that he's got the word out about cruel captivity, celebrities are starting to get involved as well. This is a wee clip a guy called David Phillips made to promote the Dolphin campaign-http://vimeo.com/17129452#

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After releasing "The Cove", Ric O'Barry carried on with his movement and is still filming the little bay in Taiji, Japan for his tv series, Blood Dolphin$. His son Lincoln O'Barry is now involved and they work as a dedicated team in the series to stop the Taiji dry fisheries and to convince marine parks that dolphin captivity isn't very cool and they should probably get a real job about now.

Seahorse - Hippocampus

It's hard for scientists to know how well the seahorse population is surviving because they know so little about the wee creature, but they do know that loss of coral reefs and seagrass beds will be having a large impact on their existence.

The Seahorse is one of the only two fish which swim upright.

One species of seahorse was classed the slowest moving fish.

Their eyes can move separately (one cod be looking forward and one looking back).

A seahorse will just cling to something stable for a long time, sucking in small crustacean and nutrients from the surrounding water.

Courtship for these fish can last for days, they spend a lot of time together doing things like swimming side-by-side holding each other's tails or performing courtship dances or just clinging to the same strand of grass, until the female feels it's time to fertilise her eggs. Male seahorses have a womb-like pouch on their belly which is filled with up to 1,500 little eggs from the female whilst mating. He'll hold them for 9-45 days until they pop out as fully developed teeny tiny seahorses. The father will then abandon his babies to go off and mate again with another seahorse mistress.

Whilst pregnant, the male feeds the eggs some type of nutrients similar to the lactose in mammal's milk.

Less than 0.5% of the infants will survive to maturity which is why so many are born.

The little seahorse in the photo above is called a Pygmy Seahorse which is one of the smallest of this species. They grow to be less then 2cm tall (around 17mm).

And as you can see, they're extremely good at camouflaging into grasses and corals where they live.

Seahorses are said to be the head romantics of all species.

"Rays"-Batoidea

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There are a few different types of Batoidea and most people just class them all as stingrays. The truth is that they're not all stingrays, only a small portion of Batiodea are stingrays. 

They come from the same family as sharks (Elasmobranchii) and looking at them, you can see the similar traits and characteristics.

They're split into four main groups; Stingrays, Skates, Electric rays and Sawfish.

My favourite are the stingrays, they tend to have the wide pointy wings and look as though they're flying across the sea. They can jump above the water just like whales do (breaching).

Most rays live in more tropical parts of the sea and stay close to land, except the manta ray which often swims in open oceans.

They only feed on small organisms on the ocean floor like shell fish, crustaceans, and even plankton.

I think the prettiest ray is the spotted eagle ray.

They're sometimes called the Duckbill ray because they have a long snout which resembles a duck's  bill used for digging in sandy sea floors for food, they're black or dark blue with white spots that are unique to every animal.

Spotted Eagle rays have longer tails than other rays and two to six venomous barbs at the base of the tail.

These rays can grow up to 5 metres long and have a wingspan of 3 metres wide!

One thing I don't like about these rays is that they like to feed on my favourite little octopi.

They've been known to use a method to dig for food called the pelvic thrust where they'd move their pectoral fins up and down quickly causing disturbance in the surrounding area.

These animals seem to mate extremely violently, the male or several males will find a female, bite her on her back and flip her over, mate for 30-90 seconds then leave. The female carries the eggs inside her, where they are laid internally and after about a year long gestation period she gives birth to live young.

Just like us, their main fear in the water is the sharks who love feeding on fresh ray, and their other predator is us, catching them for aquarium displays and not thinking about their threats.

Orca cont. 

After seeing the Killer Whales in the open ocean, I started researching how endangered they really are.
Astoundingly, I came across thousands of sites and groups protesting against marine mammals and small cetaceans(dolphins etc) in captivity, and knew there'd be reasoning behind it. I carried on researching and watched clips of captive mammal shows and saw "The Cove"(if you haven't seen it, do). They all clarified the idea that marine entertainment parks are extremely cruel and falsely advertise that they're interested in the wellbeing of their animals. Realistically they just want your money for another porsche.
I also recently found out that Iceland is taking away it's law against whaling, which is a bad decision and will definitely not have a positive effect on the quickly dropping numbers of mammals in the ocean. 
"Free Willy" is another awesome movie telling it straight!
After scanning around finding interesting information on this topic, i came across a few articles and photos of wounded show dolphins.
A common one is the fin of the Killer Whale starting to droop, this is caused by the change in environment and the lack of pool depth in captivity.

But, a more extreme injury I came across were rashes and huge chunks of skin missing from the chin of many dolphins.

50 percent of marine mammals born in captivity will die in the first four months of their life.

I apologise for the dark and sad tone of this post, but I believe everyone should know about the creepy minds of those corporate men who own ocean entertainment parks to become snobby billionaires and don't care in the slightest about the animals bringing in their money. It's gross.

Killer Whale Orcinus Orca

The king of the food chain, the master of the sea. 
You don't quite realize how unreal this dolphin is until you see it in the wild for yourself. Yesterday i went to Kaikoura Whale Watch (Whale Watch) and saw 4 of these crazy beasts. They were pitch black, very very fast and just 100% extraordinary.

A toothed whale belonging to the dolphin family, found in every ocean of the world and held captive in many marine entertainment parks where they're known to be treated with ill respect and not given all experiences or recourses wild Orca would have.
This species has been named endangered or threatened because due to less food source, pollution, capture for marine mammal parks, habitat loss and conflict with fisheries.
The name "Orca" comes from the name of this dolphin's family, "Orcinus" meaning "of the kingdom of the dead" and is used commonly instead of their other name "Killer Whale".

Females mature at around 15 and mate until around the age of 40, when they (the only other animal like us) go through menopause and live for 10-40 years longer without reproducing. The females have one calf around every 5 years and 37-50% of these die during infancy. Apparently every member of the pod takes part in raising the calves. Males and females sexually mature at 15, but males generally don't reproduce until the age of 21 and only live for 29-60 years.
Females live with their mother for their whole life and this group can hold up to 4 generations because of the large life span Orcas have.
To communicate, Orca use clicks, whistles and pulsed calls. These are partially unique to the pod, like we have unique languages for every country.
Their brains are second heaviest after the Sperm whale, and they are often classed as very intelligent. Some examples of their intelligence are; their technique of deliberately beaching themselves to catch seals, or catching seals then releasing them alive near a group of young to give the young hunting experience, and stealing fish from fishermen's nets. There were a group of fishing boats which tried to avoid this by placing many boats in a line and each catching just a small amount of fish, thinking the Killer Whales wouldn't be able to steal all their catch. But, they soon figured it out and when they figured that the fishermen were playing a game with them they began breaching (flipping out of the water playfully) by the boats.
This movie is about the famous Killer Whale Keiko, also known as Willie, the star of the hit movie Free Willie. It's worth a watch.(Free Willie Doco)

The Whale Shark Rhincodon

This fish, the largest of them all, would appear to be one of the most gentle creatures in the sea. It feeds only on small fish and if you were to dive with a whale shark, you'd find it wouldn't have any interest in hurting you.
It's been named the Whale Shark for it's size (largest recored was 12.65 metres long) and feeding habits,. they tend to filter feed on plankton, however it has been revealed that they hunt small fish and are known to time their arrival to certain destinations in order to feed on spawning fish eggs and sperm.
The whale shark lives in all tropical seas and tends to migrate around the world for food, mating and nursing.
It's mouth can be up to 1.5 metres wide, so if i was to lie down, it could easily fit me sidewys on it's mouth. It's big. To tell if a whale shark is juvenile or adult, it's tail starts off to be alot larger on the top half then bottom, and grows to be semi-lunate/crescent shaped.
Although it's not encouraged by shark scientists and conservationalists, these sharks seem to allow diver to hold onto their fins and go for a ride. But there was a report of a guy who was photographing a whale shark feeding and got just too close so was almost sucked into the whale's mouth on accident.

It appears on the back side of the 100pesos note in the Phillipines as many have been seen and hunted around the Phillipines.
Many aquariums in Asia keep Whale Sharks captive as their main attractions, but personally, I'd rather see them in the wild.
Different names:
Ca-Ong=Sir Fish:Vietman
Pez Dama/Domino:Latin America
Sapodilla Tom:Belize
Papa Shillingi:Kenya
Marokintana=many stars:Madagascar
Geger Lintang:Indonesia
Butanding/Balilang:Phillipines
Photo Credit:http://www.thegreenpages.com.au/news/love-doesnt-hurt-ecotourism-has-no-long-term-effect-on-whale-sharks-aims-au/df

The Wondrous Jellyfish. No brain, yet so gracious.

Paper Nautilus Octopus

This guy has most features similar to other octopi (a round head, eight legs, no fins) but rather than living in the deep ocean, it prefers to dwell close to the surface. It also has a special characteristic which has only recently evolved to these dudes, the formation of a paper-thin shell to protect it's eggs in. The egg case strangely resembles the shell of the extinct ammonites with it's spiral form and continuous ribs. It has been said that these octopi used to use old ammonite shells for their eggs then developed the ability to repair them, later to develop the ability of making their own shell. This theory's uncertain but makes sense to me!

Extinct Ammonite

 Right before laying her eggs, the mother secretes this shell and lays her eggs in the very end. She somehow gets air into a bubble in the shell to increase it's buoyancy then fits herself into it for shelter.

Paper Nautilus Shell

There's a large difference between the male and females. Males don't have the large dorsal tenticles which females use for making the shell, and males only mate once in their lifetime. Whereas females mate many times in their life. When they make, the male extends a modified arm containing sperm which attaches to the female and she keeps hold of it for a long time.

These octopi are pretty amazing creatures and sometimes lurk around New Zealand!