All Topics  
Aquatic animal

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Aquatic animal
 
 
  Topics Aquatic animal Topic Home

An aquatic animal is an animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
, either vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 or invertebrate
Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal lacking a vertebral column. The group includes 98% of all animal species ? all animals except those in the Chordate subphylum vertebrate ....
, which lives in water for most or all of its life.

Natural environment
Natural environment

The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all life and non-living things occurring nature on Earth or some region thereof....
s and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic (water) or terrestrial (land). Animals that move readily from water to land and vice versa are often referred to as amphibious
Amphibious

Amphibious means able to use either land or water. In particular it may refer to:*Amphibious warfare, warfare carried out on both land and water...
.

The term aquatic can in theory be applied to animals that live in either freshwater
Freshwater

Freshwater is a word that refers to bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, rivers and streams containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids....
 or saltwater. However, the adjective marine
Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology....
 is most commonly used for animals that live in saltwater, i.e.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Aquatic animal'
Start a new discussion about 'Aquatic animal'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


An aquatic animal is an animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
, either vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 or invertebrate
Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal lacking a vertebral column. The group includes 98% of all animal species ? all animals except those in the Chordate subphylum vertebrate ....
, which lives in water for most or all of its life.

Natural environment
Natural environment

The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all life and non-living things occurring nature on Earth or some region thereof....
s and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic (water) or terrestrial (land). Animals that move readily from water to land and vice versa are often referred to as amphibious
Amphibious

Amphibious means able to use either land or water. In particular it may refer to:*Amphibious warfare, warfare carried out on both land and water...
.

The term aquatic can in theory be applied to animals that live in either freshwater
Freshwater

Freshwater is a word that refers to bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, rivers and streams containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids....
 or saltwater. However, the adjective marine
Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology....
 is most commonly used for animals that live in saltwater, i.e. in oceans, seas, etc.

Aquatic animals (especially freshwater animals) are often of special concern to conservation
Conservation ethic

Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the Natural environment: its forests, fishery, habitat , and biological diversity....
ists because of the fragility of their environments.

Aquatic invertebrates

In the study of mollusks, (malacology
Malacology

Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology which deals with the study of mollusks, the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods....
), the word aquatic is more commonly applied to the freshwater species, because of the convenience of the word marine for the saltwater ones.

Aquatic vertebrates

The term "aquatic animal" can be applied to aquatic or sea mammals
Aquatic mammal

Aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals are a diverse group of mammals that dwell partly or entirely in body of water. They include the various marine mammals, who dwell in oceans, as well as various river-dwelling species, such as the Platypus, the European Otter, and the Amazon River Dolphin....
 such as those in the order Cetacea
Cetacea

The order Cetacea includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Cetus is Latin and is used in biological names to mean "whale"; its original meaning, "large sea animal", was more general....
 (whale
Whale

Whales are marine mammals of order Cetacea which are neither dolphinsmembers, in other words, of the families Oceanic dolphin or River dolphinnor porpoises....
s), which cannot survive on land, as well as four-footed mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s like the river otter
Otter

Otters are semi-aquatic fish-eating mammals. The otter Rank Lutrinae forms part of the Family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, polecats, badgers, as well as others....
 (Lutra
Lutra

Lutra is a genus of otters with three species.*Lutra lutra - European otter*Lutra nippon - Japanese otter*Lutra sumatrana - Hairy-nosed otter...
 canadensis) and beavers (family Castoridae
Castoridae

The family Castoridae contains the two living species of beaver and their fossil relatives. This was once a highly diverse group of rodents, but is now restricted to a single genus, Castor ....
). It a

Aquatic animals include for example the seabirds, such as gulls (family Laridae), pelicans (family Pelecanidae), and albatrosses (family Diomedeidae), and most of the Anseriformes
Anseriformes

The order Anseriformes contains about 150 living species of birds in three extant families: the Anhimidae , Anseranatidae , and the Anatidae, which includes over 140 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, goose, and swans....
 (ducks, swans and geese).

Amphibious and amphibiotic animals, like frog
Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . The name frog derives from Old English language frogga, , cognate with Sanskrit plava , probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European language praw = "to jump"....
s (the order Anura), while they do require water, are separated into their own environmental classification. The majority of amphibians (class Amphibia) have an aquatic larval
Larvae

In Roman mythology, the larvae or lemures were the spectres or spirits of the dead; they were the malignant version of the lares. Some Roman writers describe lemures as the common name for all the spirits of the dead, and divide them into two classes: the lares, or the benevolent souls of the family, which haunted and guard...
 stage, like a tadpole
Tadpole

A tadpole or polliwog is the wholly aquatic larval stage in the life cycle of an amphibian....
, but then live as terrestrial adults, and may return to the water to mate
Mate

Mate and similar may refer to:* One of a pair of animals involved in mating* Mate , a colloquialism used to refer to a friend* Mahte, a goddess in Latvian mythology, also spelled Mate...
.