There is beauty in nature everywhere—the mountains, the trees, the birds. Let’s dive underwater and prepare to be amazed by nature in all its weirdness and glory!

• The Bladderwort is an aquatic carnivorous plant without roots. It floats on water with the help of branched stems. Each of the stems have bladders (or traps) with flexible doors that have sensitive hair-like threads on them. An area of low pressure is formed within the trap as the plant moves water from inside the bladder to outside. When a small creature triggers the hair, the trapdoor opens and sucks in water, thereby sucking it in too!
• Corals are not plants but are made up of tiny animals called polyps! The polyp has a soft body with a mouth on top of it that is surrounded by tentacles. Polyps connect to each other and form a colony that works like a single system. As the colonies grow over hundreds of years, they meet with other colonies and together form a reef. 25 per cent of the world’s marine creatures live in corals!
• Basket stars are found deep in the ocean. They are invertebrates with spindly arms that can grow as long as three feet! These arms look like dancing snakes and have small sharp hooks that help in catching prey. If any of the arms were to break, they would grow right back!
• The giant water lilly (Victoria amazonica) has the largest floating leaves. These leaves can grow up to about 10 feet wide! The leaves have a system of thick arteries that branch out into connecting veins. This makes the leaf strong enough to hold a small child!
• The tasselled wobblegong is a shark that camouflages perfectly with the sea floor. It gets its name from its shaggy beard that blurs the outline of its body from its surroundings. It can use its tail as a lure by shaking it and then sucks the whole prey into its mouth.

Sources

Britannica

NC State Extension

National Geographic – Kids

National Geographic – Corals

National Geographic – Lily Pad

Science.org

BBC Earth

Ocean Today

BBC

Science Focus