Around 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans. The largest ocean on Earth is the Pacific Ocean. The world’s oceans are home to incredible creatures. Let’s take a deep breath and dive to the depths of the sea!
Sea and Ocean Animals Yoga
Crabs (Crab: Sitting on your bottom, with your knees bent, feet flat and hands behind you. Lift your hips up and walk over to one side, then the other) have 10 legs, however the first pair are its claws. They usually have a distinct sideways walk. However, some crabs can walk forwards or backwards and some are capable of swimming. They can communicate with each other by drumming or waving their pincers. They eat both meat and plants.
Dolphins (Dolphin: Coming onto your hands and knees. Clasp your hands together and come further down onto your elbows. Rock forward and backward over your arms making your best happy dolphin clicking noise) are believed to be very intelligent compared to other animals. They are carnivores – meat eaters. They often display a playful attitude which makes them popular in human culture. They can be seen jumping out of the water, riding waves, play fighting and occasionally interacting with humans swimming in the water.
Fish (Fish: Lying on your back, prop yourself up on your elbows and point your toes down. Then pop your chest up to the sky and look all the way back behind you) have gills that extract oxygen from the water around them. There are over 30000 known species of fish. Relative to their body size, fish have small brains compared to most other animals. Fish are covered in scales which are often covered in a layer of slime to help their movement through water.
Jellyfish (Jellyfish/Uttanasana: Stand tall with knees slightly bent and fold at the hips. As your hands come closer to the ground, your knees can bend as much as you need in order to have your tummy close to your thighs) live in the sea and are found in all oceans. They look a little like umbrellas. They can be large and brightly colored. They can often be transparent. Some can be very hard to see, nearly invisible to the human eye. They don’t have brains. They use their tentacles to sting. They eat plankton.
Lobsters (Lobster: Standing with your legs wide, toes pointed out, bend your knees and squat. Take your arms out to the sides and bend your elbows so your hands point up towards your head and snap your hands like lobster claws) can be found in all of the world’s oceans. They can’t really swim. They live their lives on the ocean floor and move around using their legs. They use rock caves or holes in the sand as their houses. They have very bad eyesight so it isn’t easy for them to catch food. Their claws are extra big to help give them a better chance to catch food. They normally can live up to fifty years.
Octopuses (Octopus: Lie on your back and lift up your arms and legs. Wave your legs in the air with your octopus arms. Make wriggly shapes in the air using big arm movements) have two eyes in a globe-shaped head off which protrude eight long limbs called tentacles that have two rows of sucker senses. There are around 300 species of octopus, usually located in tropical and temperate ocean waters. An octopus has a hard beak, like a parrot beak, which they use to break into and eat their pray such as crabs and shellfish. They usually live 6-18 months.
Some otter species (Happy Baby: Lying on our backs, we bend our knees and take hold of our feet, keeping the soles of our feet facing up to the sky) spend all their time in the water while others are land and water-based animals. Otters live up to 16 years in the wild. They are very active hunters, spending many hours a day chasing prey through water. They mainly eat fish, frogs, crayfish and crabs. Some species carry a rock to help smash open shellfish.
Seahorses (Horse: One knee down, one knee up. Lift and join your hands up high above your head) are tiny fish that are named for the shape of their head, which looks like the head of a tiny horse. They swim upright among seaweed and other plants. A female seahorse lays dozens of eggs in a pouch on the male seahorse’s abdomen. Depending on the seahorse species, the eggs remain the brood pouch for up to 45 days until the eggs are ready to hatch.
Sea turtles (Turtle: Sitting up with your legs out wide, bend your knees a little and slip your hands underneath your legs, flattening your body down towards the floor) have a more plant-based diet and eat seagrass. Since they do not have to protect themselves from predators for most of their life on water. Sea turtles cannot retract their flippers and head into their shells. They can hold their breath for five hours underwater. They live about 100 years.
Some seals (Seal/Upward Facing Dog: Lie on your tummy, lift your head and shoulders off the ground. Place your palms flat next to your shoulders and arch up like a seal) migrate hundreds of miles every year in search of food. Seals can dive to great depths underwater and stay there for up to two hours. Seals use clicking or thrilling noises to communicate. Seals have a thick layer of fat called blubber under their skin to keep them warm in icy water.
Sharks (Shark: Lie on your tummy, clasp your hands behind your back and lift up your shark fin) are ancient animals. They have been on earth for at least 420 million years. Sharks, unlike most fish, don’t have bones. They have several rows of teeth and might have as many as 3,000 teeth in their mouth at one time. A shark’s sense of smell is 10,000 times better than a human’s.
There are about 1,600 different species of starfish (Star: Standing tall with your legs wide and arms outstretched) living in the world’s oceans. Some kinds of starfish are even found on sandy sea-beds 9,000 meters deep. Most starfish sport spiny skin and five arms surrounding a central disk shape body. They also have eyespots on the tips of the arms, which allow the starfish to sense light and dark, and help it find food.
Stingrays (Stingray: Sitting on your bottom, separate the legs out wide. Then fold the body forward toward the floor, keeping a straight back) are pretty unique as they have no bones in their body. They use a super set of senses to search for food. Special gel-filled pits across the front of their face, allow them to pick up electrical signals from other animals when they move. They protect themselves with venomous spines or barbs in their tail.
A whale (Whale: Lie on your back and bend your knees so your feet are flat. Arms lay down by your sides. Press into your feet, arms and hands and lift your bottom up) is a large mammal that lives in the ocean. Just like you, whales have lungs and breathe air, but they breathe through the blowholes at the top of their head instead of a nose. They snooze but can’t nap for too long because they have to come up for air. Whales are found in every ocean.
If you want to see the rainforest animals, please visit Yoga Theme: Rainforest Animals.