Reef Awareness Day: Reef Awareness Day, List 1

The flood of extra nitrogen causes a wild growth of algae, and the algae take up all the oxygen in the water, smothering the fish. The Omnivore's Dilemma

The grass swayed and rustled around her like the tentacles of a gigantic undersea anemone. The Son of Neptune

The hull of the lifeboat invited life too, in the form of small gooseneck barnacles. Life of Pi

Poppy’s father had been a conch fisherman, like many others who had left the Bahamas to settle in the lanes of Key West. Full of Beans

Fish and octopus and coral make watery homes in their empty eye sockets and tooth cavities. Without Refuge

“Some of the most lethal creatures on earth are invertebrates.” Fish in a Tree

He saw a jellyfish in a tide pool, and the swirl of the tentacles reminded him of the swirl of her hair, and then he spent the rest of his life painting pictures of jellyfish. The Thing About Jellyfish

A lobster’s home is its shell, which it sheds to grow. The House That Lou Built

About 90 percent of their diet was seafood—fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and seaweed—the Chinchorro ate almost no fruit, vegetables, or land animals. 1491

For most of the four billion years since the origin of life, the dominant organisms were microscopic blue-green algae, which covered and filled the oceans. Cosmos

There had been whales feeding on plankton and he had tried pulling his plankton cone net but with only partial success. The Voyage Of The Frog

What is coral? When you see pictures in National Geographic of huge rock like things in the ocean with fish swimming all around, is that coral? Well, sort of. That is a coral reef. Ocean World

This turtle is an experiment to show how the heart of a reptile can keep on going after the rest of it is dead. Cat's Eye

At night a coral polyp will stick its tentacles out of its vase and let the tentacles wave in the current. Then, when plankton float by, the coral polyp stings them with its tentacles and brings the plankton inside its shell to have for lunch. Ocean World

There are over 500 different species of coral. Some look like brains and some like fans and some like the antlers of deer, but they are all made up of tiny coral polyps. Ocean World