UngulateUngulates (ˈʌŋɡjʊleɪts,-ɡjə-,-lɪts,_-ləts ) are members of the diverse clade Euungulata ("true ungulates") which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. Once part of the clade "Ungulata" along with the clade Paenungulata, "Ungulata" has since been determined to be a polyphyletic and thereby invalid clade based on molecular data. As a result, true ungulates had since been reclassified to the newer clade Euungulata in 2001 within the clade Laurasiatheria while Paenungulata has been reclassified to a distant clade Afrotheria.
MustelidaeThe Mustelidae (mʌˈstɛlᵻdiː; from Latin mustela, weasel) are a diverse family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, martens, and wolverines. Otherwise known as mustelids (ˈmʌstᵻlɪdz), they form the largest family in the suborder Caniformia of the order Carnivora with about 66 to 70 species in nine subfamilies. Mustelids vary greatly in size and behaviour. The smaller variants of the least weasel can be under in length, while the giant otter of Amazonian South America can measure up to and sea otters can exceed in weight.
SpitsbergenSpitsbergen (ˈspɪ̀tsˌbærɡn̩; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: Vest Spitsbergen or Vestspitsbergen ˈvɛ̂stˌspɪtsbærɡn̩, also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Constituting the westernmost bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea. Spitsbergen covers an area of , making it the largest island in Norway and the 36th largest in the world.
Blue whaleThe blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known ever to have existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can be of various shades of greyish-blue dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. Four subspecies are recognized: B. m. musculus in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia in the Southern Ocean, B. m. brevicauda (the pygmy blue whale) in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, B.
Ringed sealThe ringed seal (Pusa hispida) is an earless seal inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The ringed seal is a relatively small seal, rarely greater than 1.5 m in length, with a distinctive patterning of dark spots surrounded by light gray rings, hence its common name. It is the most abundant and wide-ranging ice seal in the Northern Hemisphere, ranging throughout the Arctic Ocean, into the Bering Sea and Okhotsk Sea as far south as the northern coast of Japan in the Pacific and throughout the North Atlantic coasts of Greenland and Scandinavia as far south as Newfoundland, and including two freshwater subspecies in northern Europe.
Bait ballA bait ball, or baitball, occurs when small fish swarm in a tightly packed spherical formation about a common centre. It is a last-ditch defensive measure adopted by small schooling fish when they are threatened by predators. Small schooling fish are eaten by many types of predators, and for this reason they are called bait fish or forage fish. For example, sardines group together when they are threatened. This instinctual behaviour is a defence mechanism, as lone individuals are more likely to be eaten than an individual in a large group.
CarnivoraCarnivora kɑrˈnɪvərə is an order of placental mammals that have specialized in primarily eating flesh, whose members are formally referred to as carnivorans. The order Carnivora is the fifth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species. Carnivorans live on every major landmass and in a variety of habitats, ranging from the cold polar regions to the hyper-arid region of the Sahara Desert to the open seas. They come in a very large array of different body plans with a wide diversity of shapes and sizes.
EoceneThe Eocene (ˈiːəsiːn,_ˈiːoʊ- ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name Eocene comes from the Ancient Greek ἠώς (ēṓs, "dawn") and καινός (kainós, "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch.
Aquatic animalAn aquatic animal is any animal, whether vertebrate or invertebrate, that lives in water for all or most of its lifetime. Many insects such as mosquitoes, mayflies, dragonflies and caddisflies have aquatic larvae, with winged adults. Aquatic animals may breathe air or extract oxygen from water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through the skin. Natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic (water) or terrestrial (land). This designation is polyphyletic.
Gray whaleThe gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), also known as the grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of , a weight of up to and lives between 55 and 70 years, although one female was estimated to be 75–80 years of age. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted.
