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sea whip

(Encyclopedia)sea whip, erect colony of marine animals of the phylum Cnidaria, with whiplike branches. The skeleton consists of a horny axis, overlaid with small calcareous bodies called spicules. Often beautifully...

Yellow Sea

(Encyclopedia)Yellow Sea or Huanghai hwäng-hī [key] [yellow sea], arm of the Pacific Ocean, between China and Korea, where it is called the West Sea. It has a maximum depth of 500 ft (152 m). Bohai, Korea Bay (or...

sea slug

(Encyclopedia)sea slug, name for a marine gastropod mollusk that lacks a shell as an adult and is usually brightly colored. Sea slugs, or nudibranchs, are distributed throughout the world, with the greatest numbers...

sea pen

(Encyclopedia)sea pen, long, slender colonial organism of the same phylum as the jellyfish. Sea pen colonies are formed by several genera of the order Pennatulacea. The colony consists of a stalk formed by an organ...

Chukchi Sea

(Encyclopedia)Chukchi Sea chəkˈchē [key], part of the Arctic Ocean N of the Bering Strait, between Siberia and Alaska, Wrangell Island lies to the west and the Beaufort Sea lies to the east. The sea has an appro...

sea cucumber

(Encyclopedia)sea cucumber, any of the flexible, elongated echinoderms belonging to the class Holothuroidea. Although sea cucumbers have the basic echinoderm radial symmetry (see Echinodermata), they do not have ar...

sea snake

(Encyclopedia)sea snake, name for any of the venomous marine snakes of the family Hydrophidae, found in tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. The sea snake's body is flattened laterally and its oarlike ...

Erythraean Sea

(Encyclopedia)Erythraean Sea ĕrĭthrēˈən [key], name of unclear origin anciently applied to the Indian Ocean, later to the Arabian Gulf, and finally to the Red Sea. ...

sea urchin

(Encyclopedia)sea urchin, spherical-shaped echinoderm with movable spines covering the body. The body wall is a firm, globose shell, or test, made of fused skeletal plates and marked by regularly arranged tubercles...

Ionian Sea

(Encyclopedia)Ionian Sea, part of the Mediterranean Sea, S Europe, between Greece and S Italy. It is connected with the Adriatic Sea by the Strait of Otranto. The Gulf of Taranto and the Gulf of Corinth are its chi...