9 Insanely Fun Things Happening In Our Ocean!

These fun facts will blow your mind!

Bet you didn't know all of these...and they are truly crazy!

1. Male octopuses, hoping to mate, are frequently strangled and eaten by female octopuses instead. However, when successful, males wander off to die shortly thereafter anyway.

2. Early in life, flounders move one of their eyes so both end up on the same side of their bodies.

3. A pearl necklace may be expensive but essentially pearls are just pretty spitballs. Pearls form inside oysters when an irritant (like a grain of sand) gets between the oyster’s tender body and its shell. This is uncomfortable, so oysters cover the irritant with multiple, thin layers of nacre, the oyster equivalent of human spit!

4. Lobsters pee out of their faces and they’ve been known to pee in each other’s faces to communicate.

5. Slipper snails can change gender at will. All begin life as males but depending on how they stack up, which they do for reproduction and protection, the snail at the bottom of the group becomes female.

6. Since they live in murky water, mud crabs can’t see much but they can detect even the slightest drop of pee from their arch enemy, the blue crab. The scent is extra powerful if the blue crab just ate a mud crab.

7. Moon snails drill holes into clams to force them open. Once open, the snail eats the clam alive.

8. Some ocean animals can barf up their entire stomach, sometimes even their intestines. And we’re not talking just contents. Known as stomach eversion, this provides these creatures with a very thorough way to clean out their insides, scare off predators, or in the case of starfish, a very unique way to dine.

9. Jellyfish are mostly water, have no backbone, brain or heart, and perhaps most disturbing, they eat and poop using the same orifice.

It has been a great summer learning so many fun (and gross!) facts about our ocean from Claire Antonucci at NJ Sea Grant!