Seagrass in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
Did you know that seagrasses are the only flowering plants that thrive fully submerged in marine environments? Learn about the “lungs of the sea” found in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in this week’s Earth Is Blue video!
A fan mussel among the seagrass it calls home (Arnaud Abadie on Flickr)
The fan mussels (Pinna nobilis) are a species of enormous mussel which live in seagrass beds of the Mediterranean Sea. They can grow to nearly 4 feet long (though most are 1-2 feet in size at maturity), and live with most of their bodies protruding straight up out of the sediment, anchored down into the sand with long…
Cuttlefish are amazing creatures that can instantly vary their color and shape either for camouflage or to communicate with each other. They use jet propulsion to move backward in quick bursts through the water.
The ink that Cuttlefish use to distract and escape from predators has long been used by artists, writers and later, photographers. Its characteristic dark reddish-brown color is where the term “sepia” comes from; Sepia literally means Cuttlefish in ancient Greek, so just think of these amazing cephalopods next time you use a sepia filter on one of your pictures - photo taken in seagrass beds off of North Sulawesi, Celebes Sea
