The stars of echinoderms In my last article I wrote about sea cucumbers, now let’s explore another famous echinoderm class: the sea stars or starfishes. Sea stars make up the echinoderm class asteroidae, and there are around 2’000 species of them. As most echinoderms, sea stars can be found in…
The echinoderms which aren’t round In the last article I talked about some generals facts of echinoderms, now let’s go deeper into the details and observe the class of the “sea cucumbers” (holothuroidea). First of all, the sea cucumbers look different and don’t have the typical radial symmetry of their relatives,…
“Sea urchin excitement again” Which diver doesn’t know them, the hundreds of sea cucumbers, sea stars and sea urchins encountered during a diver’s lifetime. Often a first time diver is surprised and amazed by the appearance of a sea cucumber or sea urchin and pointing enthusiastically on one of those animals urging…
Welcome to the Damselfish Family Together with the anemonefish the damselfishes belong to one of the largest families of reef fishes, the family Pomacentridae. There are approximately 340 species of Pomacentrids, of which the anemonefishes occupies just 30 species. The vast majority of this family is constituted by damselfishes, which are…
Most intelligent invertebrates on the planet Cuttlefishes, squids and octopuses belong all to the same class of animals, the Cephalopods. Cephalopod literally means head-feet and like their name indicates the feet of those animals are attached to their heads. Octopuses possess eight arms, whereas squids and cuttlefishes possess eight arms and…
Sea Anemone loving Damselfishes In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the famous anemonefish, also called clownfish. The anemonefish belong to the same biological family as the damselfish, the family Pomacentridae, which is made up of 360 species. There are approximately 30 species of anemonefishes, who together form…