Pelagic in the context of "Stingray"

Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, while modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene.

Seabirds generally live longer, breed later and have fewer young than other birds, but they invest a great deal of time in their young. Most species nest in colonies, varying in size from a few dozen birds to millions. Many species are famous for undertaking long annual migrations, crossing the equator or circumnavigating the Earth in some cases. They feed both at the ocean's surface and below it, and even on each other. Seabirds can be highly pelagic, coastal, or in some cases spend a part of the year away from the sea entirely.

The sperm whale or cachalot (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus Physeter and one of three extant species in the sperm whale superfamily Physeteroidea, along with the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale of the genus Kogia.

The sperm whale is a pelagic mammal with a worldwide range, and will migrate seasonally for feeding and breeding. Females and young males live together in groups, while mature males (bulls) live solitary lives outside of the mating season. The females cooperate to protect and nurse their young. Females give birth every four to twenty years, and care for the calves for more than a decade. A mature, healthy sperm whale has no natural predators, although calves and weakened adults are sometimes killed by pods of killer whales (orcas).

The Southern Pacific Gyre is part of the Earth's system of rotating ocean currents, bounded by the Equator to the north, Australia to the west, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to the south, and South America to the east. The center of the South Pacific Gyre is the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, the site on Earth farthest from any continents and productive ocean regions and is regarded as Earth's largest oceanic desert. With an area of 37 million square kilometres, it makes up approximately 10% of the Earth's ocean surface. The gyre, as with Earth's other four gyres, contains an area with elevated concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris known as the South Pacific garbage patch.

An octopus (pl.: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (/ɒkˈtɒpədə/, ok-TOP-ə-də). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like other cephalopods, an octopus is bilaterally symmetric with two eyes and a beaked mouth at the centre point of the eight limbs. An octopus can radically deform its shape, enabling it to squeeze through small gaps. They trail their appendages behind them as they swim. The siphon is used for respiration and locomotion (by water jet propulsion). Octopuses have a complex nervous system and excellent sight, and are among the most intelligent and behaviourally diverse invertebrates.

Octopuses inhabit various ocean habitats, including coral reefs, pelagic waters, and the seabed; some live in the intertidal zone and others at abyssal depths. Most species grow quickly, mature early, and are short-lived. In most species, the male uses a specially-adapted arm to deliver sperm directly into the female's mantle cavity, after which he becomes senescent and dies, while the female deposits fertilised eggs in a den and cares for them until they hatch, after which she also dies. They are predators and hunt crustaceans, bivalves, gastropods and fish. Strategies to defend themselves against their own predators include expelling ink, camouflage, and threat displays, the ability to jet quickly through the water and hide, and deceit. All octopuses are venomous, but only the blue-ringed octopuses are known to be deadly to humans.

The hydrology of the Strait of Messina accommodates a variety of populations of marine organisms. The intense currents and characteristic chemistry of the waters of the Strait determine an extraordinary biocoenosis in the Mediterranean Sea with a high abundance and diversity of species; the Strait of Messina, therefore constitutes an area of fundamental importance for biodiversity. Intense and alternate currents, the low temperature and an abundance of transported nitrogen and phosphorus transported to the surface from deep waters supports both pelagic and coastal benthic populations in a cycle of organic substance.

All this, with associated phenomena, determines an ecological rearrangement that simulates Atlantic conditions for species with a prevailing Western distribution. In fact, numerous primarily Atlantic species, for example the laminariae (large tawny algae), though also present in some other zones of the Mediterranean, succeed in forming true structured submarine forests only in the Strait of Messina and are evidence of the optimal environmental conditions there.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a species of krill found in the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. It is a small, swimming crustacean that lives in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000–30,000 animals per cubic metre. It feeds directly on minute phytoplankton, thereby using the primary production energy that phytoplankton originally derive from the sun in order to sustain its pelagic life cycle. It grows to a length of 6 centimetres (2.4 in), weighs up to 2 grams (0.071 oz), and can live for up to six years. A key species in the Antarctic ecosystem and in terms of biomass, E. superba is one of the most abundant animal species on the planet, with a cumulative biomass of approximately 500 million metric tons (550 million short tons; 490 million long tons).

Pyrosoma atlanticum is a pelagic species of marine colonial tunicate in the class Thaliacea found in temperate waters worldwide. The name of the genus comes from the Greek words pyros meaning 'fire' and soma meaning 'body', referring to the bright bioluminescence sometimes emitted. The specific epithet atlanticum refers to the Atlantic Ocean, from where the first specimen of the species was collected for scientific description; it was described in 1804 by François Péron, a French naturalist.

An accretionary wedge or accretionary prism forms from sediments accreted onto the non-subducting tectonic plate at a convergent plate boundary. Most of the material in the accretionary wedge consists of marine sediments scraped off from the downgoing slab of oceanic crust, but in some cases the wedge includes the erosional products of volcanic island arcs formed on the overriding plate.

An accretionary complex is a current (in modern use) or former accretionary wedge. Accretionary complexes are typically made up of a mix of turbidites of terrestrial material, basalts from the ocean floor, and pelagic and hemipelagic sediments. For example, most of the geological basement of Japan is made up of accretionary complexes.