Featured Creatures

Where we at Shape of Life live, we know when anchovies are in the neighborhood because when we go down to the ocean, we’ll see hundreds of diving sea birds, jumping sea lions, and if we’re lucky, humpback whales. They’re all here to feed on massive schools of anchovies close to shore. As they swim through the water with their mouths open, anchovies strain out plant and animal plankton. They then are food to all of the animals we see plus so many more, including larger fish and people. In fact, these small schooling fish (@nine inches long) support a large part of the oceanic food web. Some scientists say anchovies are the most important prey—also called forage fish—in the U.S. Pacific Ocean. 

Albatrosses are amazing sea birds that spend over 80% of their lives at sea, visiting land only for breeding. An albatross can live up to 60 years and in that time it would have travelled millions of miles. To fuel their large size – they are the largest flying birds – albatrosses feed mainly on squid but also on fish eggs and crustaceans.Many of the 22 species of Albatrosses are threatened with extinction. The greatest threat is commercial fishing: albatrosses get hooked when they dive to steal bites from a fishing boat’s baited hooks.

Humpback whale: Megaptera novaeangliae    photo credit: Steve Lefkovits, Pacific-Landscapes.comHumpbacks live in all the major oceans from the equator to sub-polar latitudes.They are baleen whales: their baleen acts as a sieve straining out water as it traps small fish or plankton. Humpbacks have pleated throat grooves that open and expand, allowing a whale to gulp down huge amounts of food and water. Often the whales feed in groups, herding schools of fish and creating bubble nets that trap the fish, and then opening their huge mouths to engulf their prey. 

Imagine huge, long-necked sauropods roaming primeval forests. The dinosaur represented above, Argentinosaurus, lived around 95 million years ago in what is today Patagonia. These giants are thought to be the largest dinosaurs ever to walk the earth, weighing up to 75 tons and growing to 130 feet long; the narrowest part of a leg might be about four feet around.