“Life will find a way.” These words, spoken in the Jurassic Park franchise, are so poetic and beautiful in their simplicity. They are also very true, as, no matter where you are in the world, there is liable to be life, even in the most inhospitable locations. Thermal vents in the pelagic zone seems a bad spot to live in, yet life has found a way to live in this harsh environment and reap the benefits, such as this review’s subject, the Giant Tube worm (Riftia pachyptila), an annelid that lives by these vents, harvesting the minerals they spew out.
Blue Whale (Scientific Art Sculptures by PNSO)
4.5 (15 votes)
74 years ago from this very day, Lt. Col. Waldon C. Winston witnessed and documented what he noted as the largest whale to have ever been weighed. Winston was aboard the Kyo Maru No.6. during the 1947/48 Antarctic whaling season as an observer to ensure the Japanese whalers complied with the International Whaling Regulations and directives issued by General Douglass MacArthur.
Bottlenose Dolphin, adult and calf (Monterey Bay Aquarium by Safari Ltd)
4 (4 votes)
A creature that needs no introduction, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). The common bottlenose dolphin is a very widely-distributed species, covering the temperate and tropical waters of the world. With the species-level taxonomy still in revision, the Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphin (T. aduncus) was split from T.truncatus in 2000 and 3 subspecies are currently recognized: the common subspecies (T.t.truncatus) Lahille’s (T.t.gephyreus), Black sea bottlenose dolphins (T.t.ponticus).
Zebra Shark (Sealife by CollectA)
4.5 (6 votes)
Review and images by EpicRaptorMan; edited by bmathison1972
This is one of my favorite shark species, made by CollectA (88614), the leopard shark! Er…wait that isn’t right…my editor is telling me it is actually a zebra shark!? Which dunderhead decided that was a good name? Well, apparently there is quite the fascinating story behind this common name.
Giant Clam (Shellfish with a Lid Mascot Vol. 3 by Toys Spirits)
5 (1 votes)
Right about the time I decided the review the Cadbury Yowie giant clam a couple weeks ago, Toy Spirits (a subsidiary of SO-TA, or vice versa) decided to produce one in the third volume of their Shellfish with a Lid Mascot series. The figure was not marketed at the species level, but I bought it hoping I could confidentially identify it as something different than the Cadbury figure which was specifically marketed as Tridacna maxima.
Steller’s Sea Cow (Yowies Forgotten Friends Series A by Cadbury)
2 (2 votes)
The order sirenia has long been fascinating to me, the main herbivorous marine mammals that have survived throughout the Cenozoic. The one that interests me the most (even inspiring my ATB name Sirenia) is, unfortunately, no longer living, the Steller’s Sea Cow. These giant sirenians lived around Commander Island in the Bering sea, being hunted by locals.
Giant Clam (Yowies Series 4 by Cadbury)
5 (3 votes)
The genus Tridacna consists of large marine bivalves commonly known as giant clams. The largest, T. gigas, can be 120 cm across, weigh over 200 kg, and live for over 100 years. Today we will be looking at T. maxima, which is known as the maxima clam (although it also goes by the oxymoron ‘small giant clam’).
Sloane’s Viperfish (MIU Deep Sea Odyssey 2 by Kaiyodo)
5 (3 votes)
Review and images by JimoAi; edited by bmathison1972
The deep ocean is one of the most inhospitable habitats on this planet, and animals have to find extreme ways to adapt or die out. For one, sunlight only goes as low as 1000 m, although any significant light rarely goes to 200 m, which means that there are no plants to photosynthesize and in turn, no plants for herbivores to graze on.
Vampire Squid (MIU Deep Sea Odyssey 1 by Kaiyodo)
5 (2 votes)
For this review, I deep dive for our October scary theme, and talk of blood sucking horrors, Vampires. In the deepest parts of the ocean, where even the sun fears to shine, live creatures of a frightening and ghoulish nature. One of these creatures floats silently through the waters, looking for prey to devour.
Dark Ghostshark (Alien Sharks by Discovery Science)
3.4 (5 votes)
So the call went out among us bloggers which, admittedly, I don’t get to on here very often. But the suggestion was made for a ‘Hallowe’en’ theme–spooky, scary animals that might fit in with the season. I don’t generally have a lot of ‘traditional’ animals that might fit the bill (rats, bats, black cats, gnats…I got carried away, sorry).
Blue Whale (Mega Sofubi Advance by Kaiyodo)
4.3 (13 votes)
There are many iterations of a fabled, island-sized sea monster across various cultures, which were in no doubt inspired by early accounts of animals such as the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). Blue whales exist in all major oceans, but precise distributions are patchy and their migratory movements are poorly understood.
Bamboo Shark (Wild Safari Sealife by Safari Ltd.)
5 (5 votes)
Bamboo sharks, also less glamorously known as longtail carpet sharks, belong to the family Hemiscylliidae within the order Orectolobiformes (carpet sharks). This makes them close kin to such familiar sharks as the whale, nurse, and zebra sharks. All of them are found in the tropical Indo-Pacific and the largest members of the family only reach about 4’ (1.2 meters).