In 2012, Japanese researchers observed that some of the coral samples of this type kept in museums and laboratories contained what appeared to be small crabs. The most common hermit crabs use seashell or mollusk shells for protection. However, researchers from the University of Kyoto (Japan) discovered a new hermit crab species characterized by occupying and moving small fragments of mobile coral behind its back. Scientific NameĪn individual Hermit in an aquarium with the coral (left) and removed from its host coral (right) ( source) Its range of distribution is still unknown, although, at the moment, its presence is confined and duly recorded in the intertidal zones of the Great Barrier Reef, along the northeast coast of Queensland. The female spiders are giant than the males, reaching 9 and 6 millimeters in length, respectively. It has reddish and brown tones, orange legs, and elongated and greyish structures covering its entire body to camouflage during threats. The new species have characteristics similar to those belonging to the spiders of the genus Desidae, which are marine. So much so that it usually takes refuge in the shells of barnacles, in corals, or seaweed at high tide. ![]() It was seen in Queensland (Australia) for the first time in 2009. It has learned to build a kind of silk chamber that fills with air to breathe. The Australian researchers who discovered this new species of intertidal spider gave it the scientific name Desis Bob Marley. Raven ( source)įor its ability to live whether the sea is low or high, as the song High Tide or Low Tide by Bob Marley says, it got its name Bob Marley Spider. At their roots, these unique ecosystems are fueled by chemical energy, which enters the ocean from sources like seafloor hydrothermal vents.Image of Bob Marley Spider Female allotype by R. There are other deep-ocean ecosystems that are entirely independent of the sunlight energy that kick-starts the main marine ecosystem. Alternative Food Chains The primary marine food web, which is based on plant productivity, includes many of the sea's species-but not all of them. When top predator species are depleted, their numbers are often slow to rebound, and their loss can send shock waves through the entire food web. But the marine food chain's top predators are common prey for the most deadly hunters of all-humans. They are also long-lived and usually reproduce slowly. These apex predators tend to be large, fast, and very good at catching prey. Level Four: Top Predators The large predators that sit atop the marine food chain are a diverse group that includes finned (sharks, tuna, dolphins), feathered (pelicans, penguins), and flippered (seals, walruses) animals. Though these animals are very successful hunters, they often fall prey to a simple fact of ocean life: Big fish eat smaller fish. This level of the food chain also includes larger animals, such as octopuses (which feed on crabs and lobsters) and many fish (which feed on small invertebrates that live near shore). Level Three: Carnivores The zooplankton of level two sustain a large and diverse group of small carnivores, such as sardines, herring, and menhaden. Many of them also share the same fate-which is to become food for the carnivorous animals of the food chain's top two levels. Despite their differences in size, herbivores share a voracious appetite for ocean vegetation. ![]() Larger herbivores include surgeonfish, parrotfish, green turtles, and manatees. On the ocean's surface waters, microscopic animals- zooplankton, which include jellyfish and the larval stages of some fish, barnacles, and mollusks-drift across the sea, grazing opportunistically. Level Two: Herbivores The next level of the marine food chain is made up of animals that feast on the sea's abundant plant life. They also produce more than half of the oxygen that we breathe on Earth. Together, these humble plants play a large role: They are the primary producers of the organic carbon that all animals in the ocean food web need to survive. ![]() On the coast, seaweed and seagrasses do the same thing. These tiny plants and bacteria capture the sun's energy and, through photosynthesis, convert nutrients and carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Countless billions of one-celled organisms, called phytoplankton, saturate sunlit upper-ocean waters worldwide. Level One: Photo autotrophs The foundation of the sea's food chain is largely invisible. Most of these aquatic species are tied together through the food web. But the sea is so vast that a million or more as yet unknown species may live in its waters. It's a Fish-Eat-Fish World Some 300,000 marine species are known to science-about 15 percent of all the species identified on the planet.
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