Marine Animals: English Vocabulary List

a marine mollusk with a broad body, internal shell, and the ability to rapidly change color and texture

"Cuttlefish change their skin color and texture in milliseconds."

"The cuttlefish can change its skin color and texture within milliseconds to blend with its surroundings."

a sea creature that has a bell-shaped body, which is gelatinous and transparent, long thin tentacles and a poisonous sting

"She got a mild sting from a jellyfish while swimming."

"The jellyfish's tentacles contain thousands of stinging cells that can paralyze small fish and injure humans."

a large marine creature like jellyfish that lives in tropical and subtropical waters and has a poisonous sting

"The Portuguese man of war stings swimmers."

"The Portuguese man of war is not a jellyfish but a colony of specialized individual organisms working together."

a sea creature with eight, long arms and a soft round body with no internal shell

"The octopus changed color."

"The octopus has three hearts and blue blood because its circulatory system uses copper based hemocyanin instead of iron based hemoglobin for transporting oxygen."

the microscopic organisms floating in the sea or fresh water on which larger animals feed

"Whales feed by filtering plankton from the water."

"Whales consume massive quantities of plankton by filtering seawater through the baleen plates in their enormous mouths."

a sea polyp that is predatory and resembles a flower, having bright colors

"Sea anemones look like flowers but sting and eat small fish."

"The sea anemone traps small fish with its stinging tentacles and pulls them into its mouth."

a small marine fish with an upright posture, a horse-like head and a curled tail

"The seahorse swam slowly."

"The delicate seahorse clung to the seaweed with its prehensile tail."

an echinoderm that has five arms arranged in the form of a star and feeds on mollusks

"We found a bright orange starfish on the beach."

"The starfish can regenerate lost arms over time making it remarkably resilient against predators that attack its limbs."

a small marine animal that is covered with spines and has a round shell, harvested for food

"Sea urchin spines."

"Sea urchins have round bodies covered in movable spines."