Sea Monsters (6 page)

A stingray caused the death of Steve Irwin. Steve was a wildlife expert known as
the “Crocodile Hunter.” He had a popular television show about animals. When Steve was filming in the ocean near Australia, he startled a stingray. The ray lashed out with its tail. Its barb hit Steve right in the heart. He died within seconds. It was a terrible accident. Sting-rays are not usually dangerous to people.

For thousands of years, monster fish have lived in the Mekong River in
Thailand. Giant Mekong catfish are the largest freshwater fish in the world. Some grow to the size of grizzly bears. Mekong catfish don’t have any teeth.

In 2005, Thai fishermen pulled in a giant catfish. It weighed 646 pounds and was almost nine feet long! That’s the
biggest catfish anyone has ever seen. The fish fought for over an hour until fishermen finally pulled it in. That night, lots of happy families had catfish for dinner.

Thousands of huge
Nomura’s jellyfish have crowded into the waters off Japan. These jellyfish get to be six feet wide and can weigh over 450 pounds!

Besides stinging people, the jellyfish clog up fishing nets and kill fish with their poisonous stings. The fishermen are not happy!

Jellyfish live in waters around the world. They have soft bodies and trailing
tentacles, sometimes hundreds of them. Jellyfish use their tentacles to catch fish. Each one is armed with stinging, poisonous cells.

You might be surprised to know that the
longest
animal in the world is not a whale. It is a special jellyfish called a
siphonophore
(sy-FON-uh-for). Its
tentacles can reach 131 feet long!

Our ideas about sea monsters seem a little less scary when we know the facts.
Squids,
octopuses, and all the sea creatures that frighten us are not monsters. They’re just surprising and wonderful animals!

In 1993, a huge mass of jelly-like flesh washed up on the shore of Chile. It had no head or bones. The mass was forty-one feet long and nineteen feet wide.

Scientists call unknown remains on beaches “globsters.” This globster caused a lot of excitement. No one knew what it was. Was it a new creature? Even the scientists were stumped. They said, “It doesn’t look like a dead whale.” And then they said, “It doesn’t smell like a dead whale.”

After lots more testing, the mystery was solved. Guess what? It was a dead whale.

Demo version limitation

Millions of years ago, amazing animals lived in the oceans. They lived during
prehistoric times.
Prehistoric times came before anyone could write down what went on in the world.

Many of these incredible animals lived in the
Mesozoic Era
(mes-uh-ZOH-ick EHR-uh), which began 251 million years ago. We call this time the “Age of
Reptiles.”