What in the world?

1
What in the world?
Beneath the Sea
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My stomach can expand to twice its normal size.
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Viper Fish
Viperfish
A dentist would have a hard time with a
viperfish. Its teeth are
too big to fit inside its mouth!
These fang-like teeth are great for
trapping and piercing
other fish as well as crustaceans. A
viperfish can open its
jaw really wide and its stomach can expand
to at least twice
its normal size. During the day, viperfish hunt
deep down in
the ocean (deeper than 1,000 feet), but at night
they come
up to shallower waters where food is more
plentiful.
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This dad always carries the babies.
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Leafy Seadragon
Leafy
Seadragon
Is it a piece of seaweed? A yellow alien from
outer space?
Actually, it's a fish named the leafy
seadragon. Leaf-like fins
and frilly appendages make for
perfect camouflage among
seaweeds and seagrass beds. This
seadragon sways back
and forth like sea grass in the ocean
current, making it
nearly impossible to spot.
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I can produce a ton of sand a year.
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Parrot Fish

Parrotfish
While they can't say "Polly wanna cracker,"
parrotfish are
quite remarkable. Their large front
teeth are fused together
like a parrot's beak and they
use these teeth to chip away
at coral reefs. A second
pair of teeth is used to grind the
coral down into
little pieces of sand, edible algae, and coral
polyps.
What parrotfish don't digest, they excrete. Just
one
parrotfish may produce as much as a ton of sand
each
year. That's enough to fill a backyard several
feet deep a
great source for those beautiful white
sand beaches.
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I lose up to 1,000 teeth a year!
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Sand Tiger Shark
Sand
Tiger Shark
The teeth of the sand tiger shark might not look
sweet, but
they're like Pez candy. When one tooth gets worn
down,
another one pops into place. That's because sand
tiger
sharks, like all sharks, have rows of replacement
teeth that
move up into place when a tooth gets worn down.
In just
one year, a sand tiger shark may grow, use, and
lose up as
many as 1,000 teeth. South Africans call this
shark "ragged
tooth."
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I have an extra eye.
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Butterfly Fish

Butterflyfish
Will the real butterflyfish eye please stand
up! This
threadfin butterflyfish camouflages itself with a
false
eyespot on its fin and a thick black stripe over
its eye.
When a confused predator lunges at the spot on
the
butterflyfish's back fin, it's not nearly as
painful (or fatal) as
a stab to its real eye. That one false
move gives the thin
butterflyfish just enough time to dart
into a narrow crack in
the corals.
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No batteries required!
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Flashlight Fish
Flashlight Fish
Flashlight fish not only carry their own
light, but they can turn it
on and off at will. That's
because they have a special flap of
muscle that can be
raised and lowered like a window shade to
cover the pockets
of glowing bacteria beneath their eyes. Small
prey are
attracted to this pale green glow. The light also
helps
flashlight fish see and catch their prey. If
spotted by a predator,
flashlight fish can quickly "turn
off" their lights or use a
flash-and-run technique in which
they shine their lights and then
swim away while their enemy
figures out what just happened.
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I have wings but I dont fly.
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Manta Ray
Manta Ray
The manta ray can leap up to 5 feet out of
the water,
emerging headfirst to revolve in a slow,
breathtaking
cartwheel before falling back into the
sea. A manta ray's
huge fins look like wings and span
up to 20 feet. Manta
means cloak in Spanish. So when
a manta is jumping in
the air, perhaps one could call
it the "flying" cloak."
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I have teeth but I wont bite.
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Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphins
Named for the way they leap into
the air and spin
around, spinner dolphins can make up
to 14 spins in a
row before splashing back down into
the water. They can
even do somersaults!
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Im not a vegetable but I have a pod.
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Humpback Whale
Humpback Whale
Weighing in at 40 tons and 50 feet,
this humpback whale
doesn't exactly fit the profile
of light and elegant. But
when it leaps out of the
water and arcs up toward the
sky, this humpback looks
like a graceful water acrobat.
For its next routine,
it will swim on its back with both
flippers in the
air, roll over, and slap its flippers on the
water.
And for the grand finale It will slam its huge
tail
on the surface of the ocean and dive underwater.
Oh,
did we tell you it sings, too?
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I can smell you coming!
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Moray Eel
Moray
Eel By
day, the moray eel peers from its lair in a rock
or coral cave,
waiting for unsuspecting prey. At night, it
roams the reef, using
its keen sense of smell to find a bite
to eat. Squeezing its long
narrow body into nooks and
crannies, a moray eel can ambush
hidden crabs or a sleeping
fish. Few reef creatures can elude a
hungry moray.
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Get too close and Ill blow up!
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Porcupine Fish

Porcupinefish
You might say this porcupinefish is sticking
up for itself. When it's
frightened, the porcupinefish
quickly inflates itself into a large
balloon shape with
prickly spines. For predators brave enough
(and with big
enough jaws) to swallow this ball of needles,
the
consequences can be fatal. Dead sharks and
barracudas have
been found with puffed up porcupine fish
stuck in their throats.
On some South Pacific islands, the
dried skins of porcupine fish
were once used for making war
helmets. It's easy to understand
why!
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Watch your step! I am the most poisonous fish in
the world.
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Stone Fish

Stonefish
Watch out, this lump could be deadly. In fact, it
is the most
poisonous fish in the world! The stonefish's
blobby shape and
subtle colors help it blend in with the
ocean floor. But any diver
(or fish) unlucky enough to
mistake this fish for a stepping stone
will get a foot (or
fin) full of needle-sharp, venom-filled spines.