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Post One: A Top Ten!

Following is a top ten of the most awesome, crazy, beautiful and stunning sea creatures.

10. The Narwhal.

The narwhal is kinda awesome. It's a close relative of the gorgeous beluga whale and is distinctive because of its single 'horn', which is actually a tusk growing through its head in a left-handed spiral. Sometimes, in rare cases, a narwhal will have two tusks. In the Middle Ages, these tusks used to be sold as 'unicorn horns'. It's not known what exactly the tusk is for. It's only recently that scientists discovered that it's filled with tiny deep tubules that connect to the narwhal's nervous system. They figure it's some kind of sensory organ, possibly to detect subtle differences in the waters they swim through.

9. The Whale Shark.

These creatures are, quite frankly, fucking magnificent. One day I hope to see one in real life. That's a goal for me. They're the biggest shark species in existence and they are also filter-feeders. They're perfectly safe to snorkel with and are even rather playful to divers. They can be seen at certain times of year at Ningaloo Reef here in Australia. If I'm lucky, one day I might be able to go up north and see one for myself.

8. The Colossal Squid.

I've been fascinated with giant squid since I was a kid and cracked open a Time Life book about the sea for the first time. There was a fold-out feature which illustrated a wedge of the ocean and all the different creatures that lived in the different pelagic zones. Deep deep down below were the sperm whales, and there they had a picture of one battling with a huge red squid. It didn't look real to me, it excited my mind to think that right now, somewhere in the world, these two giant, immense and awesome creatures were duking it out for survival. It wasn't a long lost struggle of extinct creatures from millions of years ago like the dinosaurs or the giant mammals. They're with us, now, on this planet. I keep an eye on the science journals and news for any new discoveries about the squid, as we're only just discovering that they're bigger than we thought they were. The Japanese got this particular photo and it was a huge sensation when it hit the media. I can't wait to find out more about these mysterious cephalopods.

7. The 'Dumbo' Octopus.

Another deep sea cephalopod that has captured the public's imagination in recent times is the Dumbo Octopus. You might have seen this cute little guy in David Attenborough's brilliant documentary series "The Blue Planet". The 'ears' are actually fins which help them to move about in the water. So engaging to the imagination are these little dudes, that someone even drew a cutesy picture of one. You can get it on a t-shirt.

6. The Manta Ray.

You just have to take one look at these fuckers to know that they are REALLY cool. They're about 7.6 metres across, they can fucking FLY out of the water and they're related to sharks. I like sharks... can you tell?

5. Leafy Sea Dragon.

Sea Dragons and their more well known relatives, the Sea Horses, are some of the most intriguing fish species in the oceans. After the eggs are fertilized the males carry the egs until they hatch - the dragons in a spongy spot under the tail and the horses in an actual pouch. Sea Dragons are endemic to Australia and are rare due to divers capturing them for saltwater tanks. I remember seeing my first sea dragon at AQWA (then known as Underwater World) and I was stunned at the delicate intricacy of their leafy little bodies. Such beauty wasn't a figment of imagination, it was a real little creature that had evolved on our planet. It remains one of the prettiest living things I've ever seen.

4. Giant Isopods.

These are pretty fucking sweet. Go out into your garden and lift up some leaves. See little slater bugs running around. Pick one up and look at its little isopod face. Now imagine that little motherfucker being as big as your foot. Pretty awesome, huh? They have silver eyes and they're the cutest giant undersea bug ever. Plus they ended up being an internet meme. Do a search on google and the first thing you get in the pictures is three giant isopods exploring a packet of doritos. Madness! (It's his cute little belly rolls that slay me, seriously!)

3. Sunfish.

I think these guys are seriously cool. They're the heaviest bony fish on the face of the earth. They're TOTALLY bizarre and totally gorgeous. Their dorsal and anal fins are their main source of forward thrust and they have no true caudal fin. They look just like swimming fish heads. So much so, that's actually what they're called in Germany (Schwimmender Kopf).

2. The Blue Whale.

How could I have a list about awesome sea creatures and NOT have the Blue Whale? It is the largest animal EVER to have existed. They get to be up to 33 metres in length and weigh up to 181 metric tonnes. They feed on krill, small fish and occasionally squid by gulping huge mouthfuls of water containing these animals and pushing the water out through the sieve-like baleen which captures the tiny animals inside the mouth. They are powerful, graceful and beautiful to listen to. They are bigger than the dinosaurs ever were. A lot of the life of the Blue Whale is a mystery to scientists.

1. The Great White Shark.

There are few animals as cool as a shark. Dinosaurs are pretty cool, but they're extinct. Tigers are pretty fucking cool, but they don't live in the ocean so they're pointless to this top ten. Sharks both terrify and fascinate us. They're a part of our culture, deep in our minds. They're one of the only apex predators we're still scared of. We haven't tamed them, we haven't learnt to control them. We only really manage to kill them. We tend to do that when a great white has mistakenly taken a chomp out of a human, thinking it was either a leatherback turtle or a delicious squishy sea lion.

They are evolutionary perfection. Their shape is ideal for their lifestyle, from nose tip to tail. They are ovoviviparous, that is the baby shark will hatch from its egg inside the mother shark's uterus and continue to develop there until it's born. Not much is known about the great white's mating practices. Apparently they're much a more social species than scientists originally thought.

The great white shark is given a very bad rap here in Australia. After a shark attack at the beach, it's not unusual for the authorities to go on a shark hunt to destroy the animal responsible. I've always felt this was odd behaviour. Sharks aren't malicious creatures, they're merely doing what they have to do so they can survive. And let's face it - if you were going to die at the hands of a predator, what better predator would there be but a great white shark? That's fucking bad ass.

"How did he die?"

"Oh, he got eaten by a great white."

"...Jesus."

See? Bad. ASS.

... Except when you take a photo of them head on like in this picture. Then they look kinda goofy. But they could still snap you in two with a single chomp.

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