Sound and Say in the Sea Trivia Quiz

Fiona is a fish.

'Fish' is a very general word for many creatures that live in the water. They all have a hard skeleton made of bone or cartilage, they all have gills and they might have limbs but no fingers or toes.

Gills are openings that fish have in their skin that let them take oxygen out of the water and breathe the old air out. They can't take it straight from the air like we can which is why they die when we take them out of water.

They can be found in water systems all over the world from the highest mountain streams to the deepest ocean floor.

Walter is a whale.

Although all whales live in water they are mammals like us and need air to breath. They do this through the blowhole in their head which works just like our nostrils. They don't need to breathe all the time like us though, they can stay underwater for up to one and a half hours!

Like all mammals they are warm-blooded so they have a lot of fat, called blubber, under the skin to keep them warm in the cold water.

Some whales are just a bit bigger than us but the Blue Whale is the biggest known animal and can be as long as a basketball court.

They eat in two different ways. Some are called baleen which means they have no teeth. Baleen works like a sieve, the whale takes a huge mouthful of water and then they let it out - the water passes through the baleen but the small fish and things they eat get caught in it

Whales with teeth have sharp triangle ones that can bit into the fish or squid that they like for dinner.

Laura is a lobster

Lobsters are crustaceans like many other animals that live in the waterways throughout the world. Crustaceans have what is known as an exoskeletan. 'Exo' means outside when you are talking about biology so it means their skeleton is on the outside of their body. Their skeleton is their hard outer shell like the hard red casings that the lobster is inside of.

They all have segmented bodies too. Lobsters have two main segments. One has the head and 'chest' area joined together and the other is the stomach area and inside both of those is another 20 smaller segments.

The last thing they have in common is jointed 'appendages'. These include legs and claws that help they to move, eat and protect themselves. Lobsters have eight walking legs, the first three on each side also have claws on them. They also have two huge claws at the front of their body which they can also use as legs.

Judy is a jellyfish.

Jellyfish are also known as Sea Jellies as they are not fish at all because they have no backbone or skeletons. They drift along the ocean with the currents although they can help themselves move forward by squirting water out of their mouths.

Known to us all as the umbrella shaped body with hanging tentacles this is only the last stages of its life. The first parts are just small cells floating in the ocean and then they attach themselves to a firm surface like the ocean floor and spend ages growing there until it breaks of and becomes what is called a medusa. The mudusa part is what we see and call a jellyfish.

They have lots of tiny stinging cells in their tentacles to stun their prey before they eat it. Their mouth is under the bottom of the umbrella and they have to digest their food very quickly or else they will sink.

Serena is a seahorse.

Seahorses are tiny fish named because the shape of their head is just like a horse, a lot of their back fins can look like manes too. There are over 50 different types of them that live in the worlds tropical waters. This means they live at and either side of the equator where the water is warm.

They use their back fins to move forward but have what is known as a swim bladder inside that they use to move up and down. It acts like a balloon - the more air inside it and they go higher and if they want to come back down they let some air out.

Seahorses like to live near the coast among the seaweed and other plants and when they want to stay still they just wrap their curly tail around one and hold on.

Seahorse mums make up to hundreds of eggs but then give them to the dad to carry in a special pouch he has. When they are ready he empties them into the ocean and they have to take care of themselves.

Donald is a dolphin.

Dolphins are marine mammals like our whale so have they have lot of similarities. They also need to breath oxygen and have a lot of blubber to keep them warm but most dolphins choose to stay in the tropical waters.

Nearly all of them live in the sea but there are a few that like the freshwater rivers and streams. Although most like the tropics, within the 36 different species there are some that live in every ocean of the world.

Nearly all dolphins just live off fish and squid but the larger ones will hunt live mammals like seals. One of these is the Orca, who is often called the killer whale because of this. The Orca is the biggest dolphin of all who can grow to about half the size of a bowling lane.

Dolphins are known as sociable animals as they live in large groups and talk to each other using lots of different sounds.

Tina is a turtle.

Some countries use the term turtle or tortoise for both species but I am separating them here. For the purpose of this information tortoises have feet and live on land while turtles have flippers and are sea creatures except for the females when they lay eggs on the beach. There is a third group named terrapins who are found in freshwater.

Turtles are reptiles and have a hard shell that protects them. The top is called a carapace and is made from its backbone and back ribs. Underneath is made from the shoulder, chestbone and front ribs and it is called a plastron.

The carapace is different shapes depending on species. A tortoise has a large domed shaped shell which is stronger if stepped upon whereas the turtle has a flatter smoother shell that help them to swim fast.

Turtles can be found in all the oceans of the world. As a reptile they need to breath air and different species have evolved different methods to help with this. Some need to breathe every minute while others can stay under water for up to an hour.

Christopher is a crab.

The crab is another crustacean like our lobster so we already know three things about it - it has an exoskeleton, its body has segments and it has jointed legs.

The crab has only one pair of claws at the front, followed by six walking legs and then two swimming legs. It has its gills on its underside and it can breathe as long as these are moist.

First signs of crabs appeared 145 million years ago - that's when dinosaurs were around and there are thousands of different species around today. They have evolved to live in lots of different places like the bottom of the ocean, seas and rivers and the seashore itself among rock tide pools.

Shaun is a shark.

Sharks are a type of fish which means we know they have a skeleton and gills. The shark's skeleton is made of cartilage instead of bone. This is the same material our nose is made of. It is much lighter than bone and much more flexible which helps the shark to stay afloat and make its movements much easier through the water.

Unlike other fish their gills are not covered, they have 5 - 7 behind the head on each side. They also have 8 fins as well as a tail. Although sharks are coldblooded like other fish they have a special ability to make their body temperature the same as the water that it lives in.

Sharks have rows of teeth constantly growing in layers underneath the existing ones so they always have a full set, they can do this because they are in the gums instead of the jaw itself. The type of teeth depend on what they eat, some need to be flat for crushing, some need ones that grip and others have sharp edges for cutting through meat.

All of these special designs make the shark what we call an Apex Predator. This means it is at the top of its food chain and has no natural enemies of its own. The only animal capable of killing a large shark is man.

Oliver is an octopus.

The Octopus belongs to a different group than all our others. They have no skeleton at all being soft bodied molluscs. They live in all the oceans but they particularly like the tropics. A lot of them spend all their time on the ocean floor but with over 300 species there are those that prefer the surface too.

The Octopus has a large head that includes the mouth and the brain, on the back of the head they have a hump known as the mantle which has all its important organs in it including the three hearts that it has.

Coming down from the head there are the 8 appendages known as arms, four on each side. They use the back two to walk on the ocean floor while the other six search for food. These arms are covered in sticky suckers which catch hold of their prey and move it into their mouth which is in the middle of all the arms.

They have a special funnel called a siphon that they can blow water out of and it helps them to move. The siphon is also used to get rid of waste and it can shoot black ink out of it at a predator to help them get away.