In some areas of the world, inhabitants gather their eggs to eat it and they kill the marine turtles to use their meat. In Alaqaba Gulf, marine turtles are in danger of extinction in reason of different human activity that endangers their species. Most dangerous activities include shore reconstruction and development that destroy the fragile ecosystems in which such marine turtles live. Moreover, they face the risk horizontal fishing and indirect killing of marine turtles due to waste dumping, mainly in plastic bags that resemble jelly fish. The marine turtles eat the garbage bags thinking they are marine species, which causes them severe diseases and death.

Do you know??
Among odd things scientists discovered about marine turtles is their ability to navigate using their navigation system that is similar to the world GIS system. They have the ability to sail in open oceans for thousands of miles depending on Earth’s magnetic fields. They always return to the shores they were born in to lay their eggs.

Do you know that marine turtles reject the extra salt they absorb from seawater through their eyes and appear as if they were crying.

Some of the marine turtles rely on temperature during incubation; if the temperature is less than 28◦c, young marine turtles will be male; if the temperature during incubation was 35◦c or more, they are female; and when the incubation temperature is between 25 - 35◦c, they are of both sexes.

Question/How many teeth does a marine turtle have?
- 24 teeth
- 32 teeth
- They do not have teeth because they get their food using sharp beak

Sea urchin:
Sea urchin is a vertebrate known for its small size; it lives in shallow water mainly on shores. Sea urchins live long for periods up to 200 years or more; studies show that the red sea urchin is the oldest of such specie ever appeared on Earth and the one with the longest life. In Alaqaba Gulf There are many sea urchins, they are picky animals with many spines on their skin.. be careful.

How do we benefit from sea urchins as marine animals?
Sea urchins live on seaweeds that live on coral ( ) thanks to its teeth that clean up the corals and remove seaweeds and rocks that impede their growth. Some times of sea urchins feed on waste and organic substance in the sea, acting thus like sea filters.

Jelly fish:
Boneless, brainless and without organs, but with a fatal bite!!!
Jelly fish is among the simplest sea species structure wise; it is headless and does not have any natural digestive system, organs or even a brain. Its size ranges between 2 cm to 61 meter long. Jelly fish live in different world oceans for more than 650 million years. They are not classified as fish as they are not vertebrates and live near coral communities. Water constitutes about 95% of their bodies. The fact that jelly fish do not have organs does not constitute any obstacle to getting food or hunting as they have a network of sensors with poisonous and biting cells, which they throw at their prey to spread poison and kill it. Scientists estimate there are more than 2000 types of jelly fish in the world.

Can you imitate the way jelly fish move in the sea?
Fine, for jelly fish swim by the pressure of water in their bodies that push them strongly forward…try to imitate them once… in some cases, jelly fish let waves and sea current transport them wherever they go without exerting any effort to swim or move.

Octopus:
Master of disguise in the sea is the octopus with its fascinating intelligence capacities when seen underwater… it can deceive its prey by changing its shape or color in less than a second; when it becomes nervous and dangerous, it turns red or any other strong color. To run away from the prey, it turns to a color that resembles the background to deceive its enemy or it changes shape… octopus is a spineless animal and therefore does not have a specific form; it has a head and feet; on the lower part of its feet, it has absorbers to capture game in between holes and narrow ceilings.  Some types of octopus have a small eye to see with in daylight and another big one for the night’s dark. In most cases, octopus lives alone in the bottom of the sea.

Does the octopus female deliver or lay eggs?
A female octopus lays thousands of eggs that take a cluster shape like grapes. After weeks of monitoring, guarding and cleaning eggs by the mother, the eggs break letting out very small octopus from each of them. The mother dies a short period after its children get out of the eggs so that they face the dangers of the sea alone.

Corals:
Corals are the habitat of thousands of sea species. They are sea animals and not plans. A coral reef comprises many coral communities adjacent to each other. Although coral reefs date back to over 500 million years, they cover only 0.2% of world oceans.
Coral reefs in Alaqaba are considered as the farthest northern end of coral reefs in the world; they are unique with their colors, diversification and numbers, which attract many tourists round the world. Coral reefs grow a few centimeters a year; therefore any damage or wrong behavior with the corals like touching, cutting or standing on them would cause long term harm thereto that will need tens of years to recover.

How many species of corals are there in Alaqaba Gulf?
There are two types of corals: solid and soft corals. The solid coral grows by forming a reciprocal relation with the fine seaweeds that live on its fabric. The coral reef provides seaweeds with the habitat in addition to some chemical substance needed for their photosynthesis. In exchange, the fine seaweeds provide oxygen and remove waste in addition to organic substance that help the coral grow. The soft coral does not have the same type of reciprocal relation with the seaweeds as it needs sun rays to grow and because of its soft structure, it does not contribute to the formation of the solid body of coral reefs.

Star fish:
Star fish is a magnificent animal that has five, six or even twenty arms expanding out of the middle of its body to help it move and stick to solid bodies. It feeds on small fish and shell. To capture its prey, it has to surround it from the top. Do you know where the mouth of a starfish is?? To see a starfish mouth, you must turn it on the back for its mouth is on the other side of its body.
Starfish has outstanding abilities that make it unique among other marine species for it can grow and form a new starfish out of its organs that were broken or detached of the original animal. With this ability, it can reproduce new animals out of the remains of another starfish.