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Kepalselam Fish Pics

Jabez

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Are they herbivores  or carnivores ?

Lesson 1 Give Your Child a Manners Makeover

by Cindy Post Senning

Cindy Post Senning, Ed.D. is Emily Post’s great-granddaughter, and educator and author of numerous books on children and manners. The holidays are coming. Decorations are popping up everywhere. Holiday music is playing in stores. People are planning turkey dinners. Families will be traveling to visit families. Parents may be stressing. And kids are beside themselves with excitement!

Parents ask me, "What can we do? The kids are wild, and we've left table manners by the wayside. Is it too late?" No, it's not too late to spruce up the manners you want your children to know before the craziness sets in. You can help them by practicing a few days before Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Make time to talk with your kids about manners too. Ask them why manners are important and which ones they think make the most sense. Help them understand this isn't about "rules," it's really about how we get along with each other. The goal is to make this a positive experience and then to enjoy the holidays. Let's get started!

Table Manners
Practice setting a simple table setting with your child: fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right (knife next to the plate), glass on the right above the knife and spoon. (Ask your kids for suggestions for table decorations.)

Explain the basics:

• Wash up.
• Put your napkin in your lap.
• Wait until all are served or the hostess begins to eat, before starting to eat.
• Say, "Please" and "Thank you."
• Hold utensils properly.
• Chew with your mouth closed.
• Offer to help clear.
• Thank the cook!

Table Conversation

• Children should talk to people beside and across from them.
• Volume: Not too loud; not too soft.
• Don't talk with your mouth full! (Try putting a mirror in front of your child during a meal, so she can see how it looks.)
• The art of small talk: For older kids, suggest topics like the weather, sports, local events, school and then practice with them. Use questions that begin with who, what, where, when and how.
• Talking about personal family issues is a no-no!
• 

Greetings and Handshakes
Kids can practice with siblings, neighbors, dolls and stuffed animals!

Greetings - The most important thing for them to do is to look the person in the eye and SMILE! They should also:

• Speak clearly.
• Say the person's name.
• Add a "Glad to see you" or "How's it going?" If it's a relative or close friend, add a hug.

Handshakes - In the olden days, knights extended a hand to show it did not hold a weapon. The other person responded showing he didn't have a weapon either. Today, kids should simply remember:

• Right hand to right hand
• Firm grip - not too tight; not too limp
• Two to three pumps
• 

Gifts You Don't Wrap

Some of the best things we can give at the holidays can't be wrapped. By talking with your children about this concept, you'll raise their consciousness about these special gifts: kindness, consideration and helping out.

Giving and Receiving Gifts
Help your kids learn the gracious art of gift giving and receiving.

Gift Giving - In order to help your kids learn the joy of giving, involve them in gift shopping or making the gifts they'll give. Then practice these interactions:

• Look at the person and smile.
• Hand them the gift and say clearly, "This is for you. I hope you like it." Or "Here, I made this especially for you."
• Watch the person open their gift and feel the delight that comes with giving.

Gift Receiving - Remind kids that time and thought went into picking out their gift. It's important to be polite by opening the gift with a sense of joy and then expressing thanks. Have your child:

• Look at the person giving the gift and smile.
• Focus on the person and the gift - not something that was opened just before.
• Say a big, "Thank you!" You can't stress this enough with your children! If they can't thank the giver in person, send a note right away!

If they don't like the gift, teach them to find something positive to say, to say it, and then to say "Thank you." For example, "This shirt is the best color blue. Thank you so much."

I hope these tips will help you and your child. And remember, good manners are a gift that will last a lifetime!

Lesson 2 Fish

TRIGGERFISHThe triggerfish is named for the large strong spine on its back. This makes it less likely to become dinner for larger fish. Imagine trying to eat a board with a nail sticking out of it! A favorite food of some triggerfish is the spiny sea urchin, an animal that looks like a purple pincushion. To avoid hurting itself while dining on such a treat, the eyes of the triggerfish are not on the front of its face, but instead back where its ears should be. 

 BUTTERFLYFISH

This fish is named for its bright colors that sometimes look much like those on the wings of real butterflies. Like its larger cousin the angelfish, the butterflyfish is seldom seen in groups. Instead, it prefers to travel alone or in pairs. The long slender jaws and tiny teeth allow the butterflyfish to nibble at small animals that live int he reef. Many butterflyfish have stripes through the eyes and a large spot near the tail, making it difficult to tell which way this fish is really facing!

This guy eats corals

PARROTFISHThis fish is named for its bright colors and strong beak-like jaws, which it uses to bite off chunks of coral. Parrotfish then grind the rocky coral into a fine sand, and eat the tiny plants and animals that live within. If you swim about on a coral reef you will hear them going CRUNCH! CHRUNCH! CHRUNCH! all day long. Much of the sand found around reefs is really coral that has been crushed by parrotfish. Parrotfish change color as they grow, with the largest and brightest fish being the oldest. 

 ANGELFISH

Baby   grow to become like this

The angelfish is without doubt one of the most beautiful fish found on coral reefs. A living rainbow, it is a favorite of photographers and fishwatchers alike. Angelfish spend most of the time cruising gracefully around the reef feeding on the sponges and plants that live there. Their pancake-shaped bodies allow them to turn quickly. They are so thin and flat that they seem to disappear when they turn to face a diver.

Napoleon wrasse

WRASSE The colorful wrasse is a close cousin of the parrotfish. There are many different kinds of wrasses found on coral reefs. Most are small, but a few grow to more than seven feet. Some wrasses play a special role in the coral city. These are called "cleaners" because they eat unwanted animals that have attached themselves to the bodies of other fish. When being cleaned, the wrasses's customers will even open their mouths and allow the wrasse to swim in without danger of being eaten! At night, you will seldom see a wrasse on the reef because they bury themselves in the sand to sleep

GROUPER

The slow moving grouper is a sly hunter. It catches other fish by waiting in ambush, and then suddenly darting forward to swallow its victim in a single bite. Some groupers grow to more than ten feet and over five hundred pounds. With their large seize, groupers eat just about any fish that carelessly strays too close. Because they are delicious themselves however, groupers often end up on the menus of seafood restaurants.

Lesson 4    Mola Mola

(see comparison of sunfish with the size of a human)

CHORDATA (VERTEBRATES)
Sunfishes (Molidae)

The word "Mola" comes from Latin and means millstone.

The ocean sunfish (Mola mola) is the world’s largest known bony fish (whale sharks are cartilaginous) with about 3m length from fin tip to fin tip and weighting 2 tons

The family of Molidae belongs to the order of Tetraodoniformes (trigger fish, boxfish, porcupine fish, puffers).

They consists of six species: Mola mola (ocean sunfish), Masturus lanceolatus (Sharptail mola) and Ranzania laevis (Slender sunfish), Mola ramsayi (southern sunfish), Amblypharyngodon atkinsonii and Amblypharyngodon mola.

Specially the ocean sunfish (Mola mola) has a very unmistakable look with its eccentric roundish shape with huge fins but nearly no discernable tail.

Characteristics

Their characteristic body shape is unique and is about the most peculiar sight you might encounter while diving. They seem to have no caudal fins at all (this rudder-like structure is called clavus), the body is large and flattened and their eyes and mouth are very small. They possess sharp edged plates of fused teeth in the jaws, which are typical of puffer fish. The scaleless body is covered with a tough, leathery skin about 15cm thick. Silvery to brownish gray or a blue motteled colour. The gill openings are small and just behind them are the small pectoral fins. The dorsal and anal fins are large and look like paddles. They are flapped synchronously from side to side (like the triggerfish) and can propel the fish at surprisingly good speed. Adults have no swimbladder.

Ecology and range

Sunfishes are found in all oceans in tropical and temperate climes, but prefer open ocean. They are adapted for life as a sluggish, pelagic predators of jellyfish or other larger invertebrates that come close enough to be sucked in. Probably they inhabit the mesopelagic zone down to about 1000 meters, but live most commonly about 300m deep.

Behavior

Molas are considered to be among the most fecund of all vertebrates, producing more that 300 million eggs, each about 2 to 3mm large. The larvae look much more like their close relatives, the puffer or porcupine fishes with needlelike spikes. As they grow their body flattens and the spines and their tails disappear.

Molas have a very small mouth that they can't close and they posses a parrot-like beak formed by sharp edged plates of fused teeth. This is also typical of puffer fish.

Mola mola eat a variety of foods, but mostly gelatinous zooplankton (jellyfish and salps) as well as squid, sponges, serpent star, eel grass, crustaceans, small fishes and deepwater eel larvae. Molas forage both at the surface, among floating weeds, on the sea floor and in deep water. They are well adapted to eat jellyfish because their thick skin provides armor against the stinging barbs. Ocean sunfish render their prey into bite-size pieces before ingesting the morsels by sucking in their prey and spitting it out again. They have long, claw-like teeth in their throat.

Molas are not highly desirable as food, since their meat may contain the same toxin as puffers and porcupine fish. The sunfish can probably get over 100 years old.

The common sunfish, Mola mola, are often covered with parasites. Some 40 different genera of parasites have been recorded on this species alone. To get rid of these them they approach drift kelp and other flotsam to recruit small fish living there to clean them.

In southern California the sunfishes surface and seagulls pick these parasites off them. They often drift at the surface while lying on their side, or swim upright and close to the surface that their dorsal fin projects above the water like a large shark fins. Here Molas are also commonly observed jumping out of the water.

In Bali the Mola Mola come relatively close to the reef to certain cleaning stations where groups of the bannerfish (Heniochus diphreutes) literally "attack" them, eating the parasites that infest their skin. If a sunfish comes even closer to the reef, angelfishes and sometimes other butterflyfishes also go after the parasites.

Lesson 5 Dinosaurs Age

Here is a part of the "Staircase of Time" showing when the dinosaurs lived.

Dinosaurs appeared on Earth nearly 250 Million years ago, early in a period of time geologists called Triassic.

They grew in numbers and types during the Jurassic time period.

They dominated Earth during the Cretaceous time period.

Their feet shook the ground for nearly 200 million years - 40,000 times as long as recorded human history! But then suddenly they all mysteriously disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago. Why?

Giant Volcanic Eruptions
In this alternate explanation of the loss of the dinosaurs, they did not die out in an instant in some catastrophic disaster, but over a period of a few million years of very stressful conditions. These conditions were caused by a series of giant volcanic eruptions that lasted for a long time --several million years, in fact. Even in our time, large volcanic eruptions have been known to change our weather--mostly by dumping vast amounts of sulfur into the upper atmosphere. The sulfur changes into droplets of sulfuric acid which are bright and reflect away the light of the Sun before it reaches and warms Earth's surface. Consequently, the temperature on the surface of Earth drops somewhat. Even a relatively small eruption like that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (pictured at the top of this page) put enough sulfur into the air to cause a measurable drop in temperature world-wide.  

This graph of the Earth's average temperature changes since 1950 shows many ups and downs, but the trend since about 1960 has been constantly upward. (Many people think that is the result of Global Warming, but that is another story!) Notice the big drop that lasted for about three years starting in 1991. That is the effect of the eruption of Pinatubo. The drop is only about half a degree, so most people didn't notice it. But this change was caused by only one fairly small volcanic eruption!

In 1815, a much larger eruption occurred at Tambora in Indonesia. This single volcano put enough sulfur into the air to cause several degrees of cooling. Enough to cause crop failures and starvation in France and northeastern United Stated in 1816 and 1817!

What happened to the dinosaurs? Imagine an endless series of super-Tamboras erupting every few decades or centuries. Remember, hot-spot eruptions are hundreds and thousands of times larger than even Tambora-size eruptions. The result would be irregular periods of great cold every few decades or centuries. Some scientists think that the eruptions poured enough carbon dioxide into the air to cause long-term warming, so that the weather would be alternating periods of unusually hot and cold weather. Plants in different areas of the land would die, not all at once, but during the long periods of poor weather. The excess carbon dioxide might also have poisoned the oceans, causing marine plants and animals to die. When the plants died, the local plant eaters like triceratops and brachiosaurus soon died also, followed by the meat eaters like T-Rex. Animals would be forced to migrate or die. And often they died anyway.

Eventually, the eruptions stopped and the weather returned to normal. But before that happened, many of the Earth's plants and animals, including the dinosaurs, were gone.

But now, the question is is there any evidence that this is how the dinosaurs died? There is an appropriately huge volcanic deposit that formed at the right time: the Deccan Traps in India. You might look up more information about volcanoes, the Deccan Traps, or "hot spot" volcanism. Or watch a volcano erupt. What about the fossil record? Did the dinosaur fossils end all at once, or do they slowly fade out over a period of time? Is there any evidence of climate change or stressed animals? There is much you can look for to test this alternate explanation. Good Luck!

The Age of Humanity
The Earth is covered with people! Humanity Rules! Our cities, roads, and farms blanket the land! Our ships criss-cross the seas! Our airplanes fill the skies! We are even entering the depths of space! We stand at the top of the "Staircase of Time."

But time continues to pass.... What's this? A new step is forming at the top of the Staircase: The Future!

Lesson 6    Dinosaurs  

Look at the list of dinosaurs- identify them

Are they herbivores  or carnivores ?

(i) herbivore - an animal that eats only plants:

e.g Cows and sheep are herbivores.

(ii) carnivore  -an animal that eats meat:

 e.g Lions and tigers are carnivores.

anchisaurus

ankylosaurus

ceratops

ceratosaurus

spinosaurus

staurikosaurus

stegosaurus

velociraptor

apatosaurus

brachiosaurus

diplodocus

giganotosaurus

mammuthus

rhamphorhynchus

dinomural

dimetrodon

allosaurus

iguanodon

gryposaurus

euoplocephalus

baryonyx

Lesson 8   Sea Turtle

Sea Turtles

There are 6 types of sea turtles and their biological names:

The Green Turtle  - CHELONIA MYDAS

The Leatherback – DERMOCHELYS CORIACEA.

The Hawskbill – ERETMOCHELYS IMBRICATA

The  Loggerhead – CARETTA CARETTA

The  Ridleys – LEPIDOCHELYS OLIVA CEA

The Flatback – CHELONIA DEPRESSA

HOW TO DISTINGUISH THE DIFFERENCE?

Sea turtles have been around for more than 100 million years. Their ancestors were giant land turtles that entered the sea ages ago when the great dinosaurs lived.

Like the dinosaurs, sea turtles are air-breathing reptiles. Like all reptiles, turtles have scaly, dry skin. It took millions of years for sea turtles to change, for their legs to become paddle-shaped flippers, and for their heavy, bulky bodies to flatten into lighter, streamlined shapes.

The dinosaurs and the giant land turtles are gone forever, but somehow, sea turtles have lived on.

Seven different kinds still swim in warm and temperate oceans around the world. They spend their whole lives in the water except for the brief times the females come onto land to nest and lay their eggs.

The fresh water turtles are called terrapins.

The 6 types of sea turtles and their biological names are:

The Green Turtle  - CHELONIA MYDAS;

The Leatherback – DERMOCHELYS CORIACEA;

The Hawskbill – ERETMOCHELYS IMBRICATA;

The  Loggerhead – CARETTA CARETTA;

The  Ridleys – LEPIDOCHELYS OLIVA CEA; and

The Flatback – CHELONIA DEPRESSA

The Leatherback

The leatherback (or trunkback) is the largest sea turtle living today.

It may grow to be eight feet long and weigh more than 1,500 pounds. Its overall color is black. The leatherback is the only sea turtle that does not have a hard top shell. It is protected instead by thick skin with seven long ridges. Its leathery back gives the turtle its name.

The leatherback is a great wanderer. Its huge front flippers take it thousands of miles. A leatherback might nest along the northern coast of South America, then swim northward to follow the warm current of the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of North America. It has been seen feeding as far north as Nova Scotia, Canada.

The leatherback's favorite food is a jellyfish most sea animals avoid: the poisonous Portuguese man-of-war. 

Like all sea turtles, the leatherback has no teeth, and uses its strong, sharp beak to catch food.

The Hawksbill

The hawksbill is a beautiful sea turtle. Its hard, top

shell, called the carapace, is made up of dark brown

or yellow and brown scales. These scales overlap like shingles on a roof. The hawksbill's bottom shell is called the plastron. It is yellow. The skin of its head and flippers has brown patches rimmed in yellow.

The hawksbill gets its name from its beak, because the top of it hooks down over the lower part, much like the bill of a hawk.

This sea turtle measures a little less than three feet long and weighs a little over one hundred pounds.

Hawksbills and other sea turtles have lungs andbreathe air.

Even though sea turtles can hold their breath for many minutes, they must come up to breathe.

 Hawksbills swim near coral reefs where they find sponges, worms, fish, snails, and crabs to eat.

The Green Turtle

When western explorers began traveling to theAmericas and the Pacific, there were millions of sea turtles in the seas. Traders, settlers, and pirates who followed the European explorers soon found that one kind of sea turtle had especially tasty meat. This turtle was brown all over, grew to about three feet in length, and often weighed some 300 pounds.  

It grazed in shallow beds of grass, or turtle grass, near the shore.Sailors could easily capture the gentle animal. Theycould turn it over onto its back so it was helpless, tie its flippers, and keep it aboard their ships to slaughter when they needed fresh meat. The fat inside this turtle's body was green from the grass it ate, so it was named the green turtle.

It is the only sea turtle that lives only on plants. Today, hundreds of years later, green turtles are still hunted and taken.

The Loggerhead

The loggerhead turtle is slightly smaller than the green. A loggerhead may weigh between 300 and 400 pounds.

It eats snails, clams, crabs, and other sea animals.

The loggerhead hunts near coral reefs and rocks. You can recognize it by its large, thick  head and broad, short neck.

The loggerhead, like other sea turtles, cannot pull its head into its shell the way land turtles can. Its shell is like a suit of armor, but its head and flippers are unprotected.  Certain sharks may attack these parts, but the loggerhead is big and fast and has few natural enemies. Color its carapace and skin reddish-brown and the plastron yellow.

The Green Turtle Nesting

A female green turtle arrived offshore at her nesting beach alone at night. She had mated earlier with a male green turtle in the water nearby. It was time for her to lay her eggs. She might nest three or four times during a single nesting season. Though she is fast and well suited to the water, she is slow, awkward, and in danger on land.

The female dragged herself out of the sea and onto the beach up beyond the reach of high tide.

She dug a pit for her body with her flippers.

She nestled in it and used her back flippers, like shovels, to scoop out a bottle-shaped hole.

Now she drops about one hundred white, leathery eggs that look like ping pong balls into this hole.

When she finishes, she will cover the nest with sand and slowly go back to the sea, leaving a trail behind her.

After she is gone, poachers may follow this trail and steal her eggs, or a hungry animal may feast on them.

The Hatchlings

The rays of the sun heat the beach, warming the turtle's eggs buried in the sand.

The eggs develop in the nest.

They are ready to hatch in about two months.

The hatchlings pick at their shells with a small, sharp point at the front of their snout; this special part will disappear after hatching.

The hatchlings crack their shells. Many must hatch at almost the same time, so they can share the work to escape from the nest. The baby turtles scrape away at the sand overhead. The sand falls upon their empty egg shells, forming a platform that allows the hatchlings to rise.

In a few days, they have scraped their way up to the roof of the nest. Then, at night, or in the early morning, little dark heads and flippers wriggle out onto the beach. Two-inch-long hatchlings crawl away and head to the sea.

Race to the Sea

The hatchlings sense the direction of the sea. The brightness over the water attracts them. They crawl from the nest and begin their race to the sea. Full of life, but defenseless, they struggle clumsily across the beach.  

Their shells are soft and offer little protection.

In some places, lizards, crabs, or seabirds catch the tiny turtles and eat them.

Many of the hatchlings that make it to the water may be eaten by fish: snappers, sharks, groupers, jacks, and sharp-toothed barracudas.

Only one or two of the hatchlings may live to adulthood. Where they go to spend their first years of life is a mystery. It is one of nature's many secrets.

Green turtles, for example, are not seen again until they are several years old, when they are found feeding offshore in turtle grass beds.

They are then as big as a dinner plate.

Where Sea Turtles Nest

Sea turtles nest in a wide, warm belt around the world. They all return to the same beaches where they themselves hatched.

Each kind of sea turtle has its own special places.

Most Kemp's ridleys nest only on one beach on the northeast coast of Mexico (A).

The flatback lays its eggs only on the coast of northern Australia (B). The flatback, as its name suggests, has a flat carapace; it is somewhat smaller than the green turtle and is gray in color.

Green turtles are found nesting in many places. Some green turtles migrate thousands of miles to nest. Greens that feed in grassy beds off Brazil, for example, may travel over 1,000 miles. They cross the Atlantic Ocean to return to little Ascension Island (C) near Africa, where they were hatched. It is a wonder that sea turtles seem to remember where they were born and that they have the extraordinary ability to find these places again.

Sea Turtles? . . . Or Turtle Products? 

Sea turtles are disappearing. And once they aregone, they will be gone forever. One reason they are disappearing is because people use parts of turtles for food and to make different products.

The hawksbill is prized for its carapace to make tortoiseshell combs, brush handles, eyeglass frames, buttons, hair clips,and jewelry.

Some turtles are killed so they can be stuffed and hung on walls as decorations.

Green turtles are slaughtered for their meat and in order to make turtle soup.

The skin from the neck and flippers of greens and olive ridleys is made into leather for purses and shoes.

Fat from turtle bodies is used in soaps and makeup creams. Other substances should be used for these products.

In many countries it is now against the law to kill or harm sea turtles.

Turtle Hunting

People who live near the shore have always hunted sea turtles to help feed their families. A fisherman might harpoon a sea turtle and take it home to eat.

Groups of men netted sea turtles when they rose to breathe and brought them back to their villages for food.

For years, when sea turtles were plentiful, such hunting seemed to have little effect on the numbers of turtles. But the demand for sea turtles kept growing. Money could be earned hunting and selling sea turtles and things made from turtles. Turtle hunting became profitable. So hunters took millions of turtles in the sea and even on the land, when they were nesting.

Fewer and fewer sea turtles were left until they were almost gone in some places. Laws now protect sea turtles and forbid trade in turtle products. But not every country has these laws and not everyone obeys them.

Trawlers and Turtles

Commercial fishing boats around the world provide food from the sea for people. These vessels cruise coastal waters, dragging large nets along the sea  bottom to gather in their catch.

Unfortunately, sea turtles are often caught accidentally in these nets. The great funnel-shaped nets of shrimp trawlers, for example, trap many loggerhead, Kemp's and olive ridley, and leatherback turtles. The turtles are swept along in the nets with the shrimp.

They are not able to come up to the surface to breathe, and they drown. Fortunately, a way has been found to solve the problem. Shrimp fishermen can use turtle excluder devices or TEDs. TEDs are barriers that stop turtles from getting stuck in nets. They let shrimp in while getting turtles out.

No Place to Nest

A loggerhead turtle looks from the sea to a beach on the coast. Apartments, houses, and hotels take up much of the beach. Only a narrow strip of sand  remains, and it is crowded with people. The turtle returns that night to nest. Hundreds of lights shine out from windows. The beach is bright. The tide rises to cement walls and pathways. There is no place for the turtle to nest.

Elsewhere, along the coast, another turtle finds a small, undeveloped piece of beach and lays her eggs.

When they hatch, the young turtles crawl toward the  brightness, but it is not the sea. It is the light of street lamps along a road that passes nearby.

The hatchlings will die in the sun later that day.

Once there were many thousands of miles of open shore for sea turtles to nest on safely. It is different now.

Hope for the Sea Turtle

Sea turtles can be saved, in spite of all the dangers they face. If enough people care, if governments help, and if the efforts of conservationists succeed, sea turtles will live.

Conservationists are people who study the problems of endangered animals or plants and try to solve them.

The best conservation programs try not to interfere with turtles. Sometimes,however, people have to interfere. In some places, sea turtle eggs are moved away from egg collectors or animals that would destroy the nests.

After many years of protection, some sea turtle populations are increasing, which is very good news.

Conservation programs are needed everywhere to protect all the world's species of sea turtles. To make beaches safe for little hatchlings, we can all work to keep them clean.

Lesson 10   TBA

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