Great Barrier Reef

Word Bank: coral, reef, diving, seaweed, fish, water, rocks, peaceful, coral, reef, fish, sharks, ocean, beach, poison, blue, clear, species, colours, aquatic, creatures, shipwrecks, marine, life, seas, dangerous.

Facts:
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world.
The reef belongs to:
-1,500 species of fish.
-359 types of hard coral.
-4,000 different types of shellfish.
-400 different species of seaweed.
-30 different species of marine animals.
-2,900 reefs.
-940 islands and cays.

Bright colours mean "don't eat me."
A herbivore only eats plants.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the Great Wonders of the world. It is a very popular place for Humpback Whales to breed.
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space!

Facts about Crown-of Thorn Starfish:
The Crown-of-Thorn Starfish are a type of starfish that eats living coral.
It has been a major issue on the Great Barrier Reef and other Pacific reefs for nearly 40 years!

They eat coral reefs from the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The Crown-of-Thorns is the second largest sea star in the world. The Crown-of-Thorns can grow from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a dinner plate. Large Crown-of-Thorns can grow to be the size of a school bus tire.

Here is a picture of a Crown-of-Thorn:









Types of living creatures:

Crown-of-Thorns starfish
Sea Snails
Puffer fish
Hermit crab
Sea horse

It's great to be a Bottlenose Dolphin:

What is a Bottlenose Dolphin?
Bottlenose dolphins are actually small whales, and belong to a group called "toothed whales". They are air breathing mammals so they still must come to the surface to breathe through the blowhole on top of their heads. Their shape and colour is depending on where they are found. Dolphins have a dark grey back and a light grey belly. It helps them camouflage when predators (such as killer whales or sharks) look up from the deep, the light grey belly blends in with bright surface waters. When seen from above, the grey back blends in with the deep dark waters below.
Where do they live?
Bottlenose Dolphins are commonly found in temperate and tropical seas all over the world. Bottlenose dolphins can be found in all of Western Australia's marine parks. Bottlenose dolphins eat about 15 kilograms of food per day. They eat a wide variety of fish, squid and octopuses.

Their Threats:
Bottlenose Dolphin's natural threats are killer whales and sharks such as tiger sharks and dusky sharks. Other risks include entanglement in fishing nets (trawling, drift and gill nets).

Bottlenose dolphins are very social animals that live together in a group called pods. Inshore pods may have around 12 dolphins and offshore pods may have the about in the hundreds.

Haiku:
Dolphins swim slowly.
They dive in the peaceful sea.
Make sounds at sunset.

Here is a picture of a Bottlenose Dolphin:

Here is a scrapbook of a Bottlenose Dolphin:

Here are some pictures of the Great Barrier Reef:

Haiku:
Schools of fish swim fast.
The Reef is a peaceful place.
Dolphins dive up high.

This is a scrapbook I made on the Great Barrier Reef: