YO HO HO!
Avast, ye landlubbers! If ye wanna be a pirate, get your sea legs and take this quiz afore ye set sail.
1.When a pirate is “tipping the blackspot,” he is:
a)Making a death threat.
b)Swabbing a dirty deck.
c)Removing his eye patch.
d)Asking for the pepper.
2.What is a “poop deck”?
a)The place where sea gulls like to poop on a ship.
b)The deck above the captain’s quarters at the stern (rear) of the ship.
c)Where pirates go to the bathroom, also known as the “head.”
d)A deck of cards with all the aces missing.
3.When a pirate says “shiver me timbers,” he’s saying:
a)It’s cold out here, matey!
b)The wind’s a-blowing and the ship’s a creaking.
c)Whoa…what the heck was that?
d)He’s singing a work song. (“Shiver me timbers, hoist them sails; let’s get this bucket out of the gale.”)
4.What are “long clothes”?
a)Rough weather gear pirates wore when sailing through hurricanes.
b)The dresses female pirates wore.
c)Baggy pants and loose jackets that only landlubbers wore.
d)A type of sail used when running down wind.
5.What is a Yellow Jack?
a)Pirate slang for a yellow jacket.
b)The name of a legendary sea monster known to have sunken many a ship to “Davy Jones’ locker.”
c)A warning flag. When a Yellow Jack is flown, it means there’s a contagious illness (like the plague) on board.
d)The name of a famous merman.
6.When a pirate takes a caulk, he’s:
a)Taking a nap on deck.
b)Brushing his teeth.
c)Going to the bathroom.
d)Shipwrecked on a deserted island.
ANSWERS:
1. a) When a pirate delivers a death threat, he slips his victim a piece of paper with a black smudge on one side.
2. b) A poop deck is the highest deck on a sailing ship.
3. c) He’s saying he’s as surprised as if his ship had just run aground (which would make the masts shiver).
4. c) Pirates couldn’t risk wearing anything loose fitting that might get in their way while climbing the masts to trim the sails in foul weather.
5. c) Merchant ships often flew a Yellow Jack to keep pirate ships from attacking them.
6. a) A “caulk” of black tar and rope was stuffed between the planks on a ship’s deck to keep water from leaking in. When pirates slept on deck, they’d often wake up with black lines across their faces from the caulk.
THE “DEEP” WOODS
Welcome to the kelp forest, where seaweed hundreds of feet high is home to all kinds of sea creatures.
This forest isn’t made of trees—it’s made of a type of seaweed called giant kelp. Kelp forests flourish in cool offshore waters all around the world. Unlike trees, kelp doesn’t put down roots in the sand; it latches onto rocks with its finger-like growths called holdfasts. And once it does, look out! Kelp can grow 300 feet in a year. That’s almost a foot a day! Why does it grow so fast? Because like all plants, kelp need sunlight to live, and the sunlight is up at the surface. As soon as the stipe (stalk) of the kelp plant reaches the ocean surface, its leaves (called blades) spread out in a vast canopy, much like the Amazon rain forest, only underwater. That canopy provides a protected shelter for fish, lobsters, crabs, clams, rays, and seals, as well as tons of food for them to eat. Every winter, ocean storms rip many of the kelp plants off the rocks and cast them on shore, destroying the forest. And every spring a new forest grows up to replace the old one.
DOWN, DOWN, WA-A-A-Y DOWN…
How low can you go in the ocean? Here’s a guide to the ocean zones.
SUNLIGHT ZONE 0–660 feet deep
Also called the euphotic zone, this is the top layer of the ocean, and home to 90% of life in the sea. Why? The sun. Its light and warmth make this a great place for plants to grow, and for the fish and mammals that eat them. But with all that sunlight there’s no place to hide, so many species use countershading to disguise themselves—they’re often dark on top and light on their bellies. From above, they blend with the dark water below; from below, they blend with the bright water above.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE 660–3,300 feet deep
Also called the dysphotic zone, it’s too dim for plants to grow. How do creatures down here survive? By feeding on each other. Inhabitants of this zone have to be able to handle cold temperatures and intense water pressure. Some fish have extra-big eyes to help them see, while others make their own light with special organs in their bodies called photophores. Scientists call that process bioluminescence. Many twilight zone inhabitants have thin bodies to make it harder for predators to see them. Fish in this zone don’t chase their food; they either stalk it…or wait for it.
THE MIDNIGHT ZONE 3,300–13,000 feet deep
Also called the aphotic zone, this is the first ocean layer where there’s no light at all. Here the water is always just above freezing and pitch black. The water pressure can be as great as two tons per square inch! Only 1% of sea life, including the mysterious giant squid, lives in this zone, but some surface animals, such as the sperm whale, can dive down to these depths to hunt them.
THE ABYSSAL ZONE 13,000–20,000 feet deep
The abyssal zone is the truly deep sea, but unlike the desert-like quality of the midnight zone, there’s lots of life here. Covering 85% of the ocean floor, this is the single largest habitat on Earth. Most of the deep is a great plain covered in thick goopy mud called sediment. The burrowing sea pig and other odd creatures of the deep get their food from eating the muck.
THE HADAL ZONE 20,000–36,000 feet deep
For most of the ocean, the abyssal zone is as low as you can go. But there are huge canyons in the ocean floor that go far deeper. This is the Hadal zone, named for Hades, the ancient Greek god of the Underworld. These great underwater gorges are miles below the surface, and for years scientists believed nothing could survive the crushing water pressure. Then, in 1960, explorers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh took a specially built submarine named the Trieste to the bottom of the deepest underwater canyon, the Mariana Trench near the Philippines. They dropped to a depth of 35,800 feet—a feat no one has ever matched. To their amazement, they spotted some shrimp-like creatures and flatfish swimming at the bottom of the world.
DUMBO
This deep sea octopus swims with its “ears.”
“Dumbo” is an octopus that lives 1,000 feet down in the ocean. Until BBC film crews filmed it while making the documentary The Blue Planet, no one had ever seen an octopus like it before. Those big flaps behind its eyes look like ears, but they’re actually fins. Grimpoteuthis (Dumbo’s scientific name) swims by pushing water through its funnel, flapping its webbed arms, or paddling with its finny “ears.” Or it can use all three methods at the same time. “Dumbo” is less than 5 inches long and likes to swim just above the seafloor, where it can dart down and snag snails and worms. There are actually 14 different types of “Dumbo” octopuses, but other than that we don’t know much about them at all.
NO BRAIN? NO PROBLEM
They don’t have brains, hearts, or even bones—they just drift silently and carry a big sting!
Jellyfish aren’t fish. They’re invertebrate (boneless) animals related to coral and anemones, and have lived in the seas for over 650 million years. There are more than 2,000 species of them: Some are just an inch wide while others, such as the Nomura, have a “bell” (body) larger than a beach umbrella and weigh more than 450 pounds! The monster of all jellyfish is the Arctic lion’s mane: One was found with a bell more than seven feet wide and tentacles 120 feet long. What the jelly lacks in body parts it makes up for with its sting. Jellyfish have a net of stinging tentacles that paralyze and kill their prey quickly. That keeps a jelly’s fragile body from gett
ing torn apart in a struggle.
SPOOK(Y) FISH!
These bug-eyes have a flashlight in their butt!
Discovered by a BBC documentary crew in 1993, winteria are known more commonly as barreleyes or spookfish because of their huge eyes. Spookfish live far below the sunlight zone at depths of up to 6,500 feet, which is why they developed such sensitive eyes. They’re tiny, only about six inches long, which is probably why no one found them before. But what’s really bizarre about this fish is that it has a light organ in its rectum that shines a light out behind it.
Why would a spookfish have the biological equivalent of a flashlight in its butt? Observation revealed that these fish hang vertically in the water, with their big eyes staring up for any prey swimming above them. Scientists think the spookfish probably uses the light shining out of its butt as a form of counter-illumination to help it blend in with the dim light coming down from the surface, making the spookfish virtually invisible to its prey.
SURFIN’ SNAILS
They ride the surf to catch their dinner!
The plough snail from South Africa likes to eat dead things that have been washed up onto the beach. When this super-sensitive snail detects the chemical traces of something good and dead in the water, it makes a beeline for the carcass—but not by leaving a slime trail across the sand like any other snail. No, this snail surfs! It uses its large fleshy foot like a surfboard to ride the waves right to its food. Its unique way of getting up and down the beach makes the plough snail the fastest snail in the world.
AND THE WINNER IS…
Meet some superlative members of the fish family.
THE BIGGEST
The largest whale shark ever seen was 65 feet long.
That’s about 1 ½ times longer than a school bus.
THE SMALLEST
A tiny carp from Sumatra is less than a of an inch long. Its name is Paedocypris progenitica. (Say that 10 times really fast!)
THE FASTEST
The sailfish has been clocked swimming at 67 miles per hour.
THE SLOWEST
The sea horse pokes along at th of a mile per hour.
At that rate, it would take it six hours to go the length of a football field!
THE FIERCEST
There are many candidates for this category, but the red piranha from the Amazon River in Brazil probably wins by a fang.
Renowned for their feeding frenzies, a school of hungry red piranhas can strip the flesh off a hapless victim in seconds.
THE DEADLIEST
The box jellyfish, also called the sea wasp, is the world’s deadliest creature. The venom from just one jellyfish could kill 60 people.
THE LONGEST
The oarfish is the longest fish in the world. It sports a magnificent red fin that’s nearly the same length as its 50-foot snakelike body. That, along with its horselike face and blue gills, accounts for it being the source of many sea serpent sightings.
“ME, QUIT? NEVER!”
It takes more than a shark to keep this kid out of the water.
Bethany Hamilton loves to surf. In fact, this teenager from Hawaii wants to be a professional surfer some day. But an early morning surf session on October 31, 2003, turned into a terrifying fight for her life. Thirteen-year-old Bethany was waiting for a wave on Kauai’s north shore when a 14-foot tiger shark attacked her. The shark bit a huge chunk out of the surfboard, along with Bethany’s entire left arm. Somehow Bethany managed to paddle back to shore before passing out. By the time friends got her to the hospital, the young surfer had lost nearly 75% of her blood. But she survived…and 10 weeks later, she was out in the water again. At first, she just wanted to see if she could surf with one arm—but once she had that mastered, she started to compete again. And she won! Today Bethany travels around the world, surfing and inspiring others to go for their dreams. As Bethany says in her own words, “Me, quit? Never!”
SHARK BAIT…NOT!
Don’t want to become shark bait? Here’s what you need to know before you hit the surf.
Of the 375 species of sharks, only 30 are known to attack humans. There are about 70 unprovoked attacks reported worldwide every year. That’s a pretty small number when you consider the millions of beachgoers who enter shark territory (shark territory being any part of the ocean, anywhere). The fact is, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than become a shark snack. But then again, if you’ve ever been in the ocean, you were probably within 15 feet of a shark and never knew it. So better safe than sorry, right?
1. Don’t go swimming during shark feeding hours—dawn, dusk, and night.
2. Swim with friends. Sharks prefer to attack lone victims.
3. Don’t get in the water if you’re bleeding. Even a small cut is enough to call a shark in from the abyss.
4. Stay close to shore. You don’t want a shark between you and the beach, and it will be easier for help to reach you if you are attacked.
5. Don’t wear a watch or shiny jewelry (even earrings) into the water. Your jewelry looks a lot like fish scales to a shark.
6. Don’t wear brightly colored bathing suits—especially yellow. Shark experts have discovered that sharks are attracted to high contrasts, including uneven tans.
7. If you see a bunch of birds diving into the water, head for the beach. The birds are diving for baitfish, and sharks love baitfish.
8. Don’t go swimming where people are fishing—sharks may be fishing there, too.
9. Seeing dolphins around doesn’t automatically make you safe. Large sharks hunt dolphins.
10. Don’t splash a lot. A shark may mistake you for wounded prey.
11. Stay away from the shark’s favorite hunting grounds—steep drop-offs near underwater cliffs or sandbars, polluted water, and murky water.
12. Don’t go swimming where sharks have been spotted and never, ever try to touch one. If you see a shark, get out of the water…fast!
IT WAS TH-I-I-I-S BIG!
For the record, here are the biggest creatures ever caught.
• The biggest blue whale was captured near the South Shetland Islands in 1926. It was 108 feet long and weighed 380,000 pounds.
• A great white shark caught off Cuba in 1945 was 21 feet long and weighed 7,301 pounds.
• A giant squid captured in 1878 weighed in at 4,000 pounds, and had tentacles measuring 35 feet in length.
• The biggest lobster of all time (nicknamed “Mike”) was caught in 1934. This colossal crustacean weighed a whopping 42 pounds, 7 ounces.
STINGRAY TO THE RESCUE!
For centuries, people have written tales of sea creatures rescuing sailors lost at sea. But this story happens to be true.
BOY OVERBOARD!
On January 15, 1990, 18-year-old Lottie Stevens and a friend were fishing off the island-nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific when a fierce storm caught them by surprise. Their boat capsized, drowning Lottie’s friend and leaving him clinging to the wreckage of the boat. After three days, the teenager left the floating debris and swam towards what he hoped was land. He swam for two days without getting anywhere. Exhausted, he knew he was finally about to run out of luck. Then he was suddenly lifted out of the water by a stingray! The ray was at least 15 feet long from head to tail.
RAY RIDER
At first, Lottie was terrified—stingrays aren’t known to be friendly. But this giant ray carried him on its back night and day for more than two weeks. They passed safely through the shark-infested waters and rough seas until the stingray swam into the shallow waters of New Caledonia, 300 miles from Vanuatu. Lottie was lost at sea for a total of 21 days—16 of them on the back of a stingray.
ALIEN INVASION
They’re here! And they’re…jellyfish?
Every autumn the seas off the west coast of Japan are invaded by millions of huge aliens who destroy fishing nets and drive off the salmon and tuna the fishermen usually catch. Although they look like something from another galaxy, these “aliens” aren’t from outer space
at all. They’re a species of jellyfish called Nomura’s jellyfish—giant jellies over six feet in diameter.
GIANT JELLIES
These seasonal swarms have been happening for years, but for some reason they have recently grown more intense—not just in the Sea of Japan, but around the world. Purple jellyfish and lion’s mane jellyfish invaded European beaches in 2006, and bluebottle jellies swarmed the coasts of Australia in January 2007. Scientists think these massive swarms may be a result of global warming and overfishing.
IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, EAT ‘EM!
But the Japanese have come up with a way to fight back: Local chefs give cooking lessons in how to eat the jellies (recipes include salted jellyfish with cucumber and soy sauce). Or you can eat them raw, like sushi. You can have all the seconds you want, too—at 400 pounds per Nomura’s jellyfish, there are always plenty of leftovers.
MISTER MOM
The most dedicated stay-at-home mom in the sea…is a dad!
Sea horses aren’t really horses. They just look like them. These four-inch-long fish swim through the water upright. Their dorsal fins act like boat propellers, sending them forward. When they want to stop, they put on the brakes by grabbing hold of a piece of seaweed or coral with their curly tails.
Uncle John's Creature Feature Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! Page 9
