Behind the Headlines – World Book Student
  • Search

  • Archived Stories

    • Ancient People
    • Animals
    • Arts & Entertainment
    • Business & Industry
    • Civil rights
    • Conservation
    • Crime
    • Current Events
    • Current Events Game
    • Disasters
    • Economics
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Food
    • Government & Politics
    • Health
    • History
    • Holidays/Celebrations
    • Law
    • Lesson Plans
    • Literature
    • Medicine
    • Military
    • Military Conflict
    • Natural Disasters
    • People
    • Plants
    • Prehistoric Animals & Plants
    • Race Relations
    • Recreation & Sports
    • Religion
    • Science
    • Space
    • Technology
    • Terrorism
    • Weather
    • Women
    • Working Conditions
  • Archives by Date

« Australia’s Impressionists
The Star Wars Gibbon »

Current Events Lesson Plan: January 26-February 1, 2017

Current Event: Rare Ruby Seadragon

Australia’s rare ruby seadragon has recently been seen alive for the first time. The ruby seadragon lives in waters too deep for human divers, so a team of researchers used a remote-controlled submersible (undersea vessel) to scour the murky sea bottom. After several attempts, on the team’s last try, the submersible’s camera finally captured the first images of a living ruby seadragon. Leafy and and weedy seadragon species have been known to inhabit the southern shores of Australia for some time, but some specimens had baffled scientists for many years. A few bright red seadragons with no leafy appendages were collected by trawling or found washed up on beaches. Because all these creatures were dead, scientists assumed they were leafy or weedy seadragons that had been damaged by the trawls or had decayed before they were collected. In 2015, however, a team of marine biologists analyzed samples of these “damaged” specimens’ DNA and discovered that they were in fact a new species: the ruby seadragon. No one had seen a living ruby seadragon, however, so the team set out to find one.

Seadragons

Marine researchers captured images of the rare ruby seadragon hovering above the sea floor off the coast of Australia. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego

Objective:

Seadragon is the common name for several kinds of fish similar to seahorses. The two most well-known kinds are the weedy (or common) seadragon and the leafy (or Glauert’s) seadragon. Both species typically live in reefs or among seaweed off southern Australia. Like seahorses, seadragons have a long snout and skin covered in bony plates. But seadragons generally grow larger than seahorses. Seadragons are slow swimmers. They feed on tiny living things called zooplankton as well as on shrimplike animals, sucking them into their tubelike mouths. Seadragons can live for 10 years or more in captivity, but probably less in the wild. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore seadragons and other animals.

 

Words to know:

  • Australia
  • Coral reef
  • Marine biology
  • Seadragon
  • Seahorse
  • Seaweed

 

Discussion Topics:

1. Seadragons are found in the waters off southern Australia. Ask your students to name some other animals native to Australia. (Students might name cassowaries, emus, kangaroos, koalas, platypuses, wallabies, wombats.)

2. Ask your students, “If you could be any type of scientist what would you study?”

 


  • Most Popular Tags

    african americans ancient greece animals archaeology art australia barack obama baseball bashar al-assad basketball china climate change conservation earthquake european union football france global warming iraq isis japan language monday literature major league baseball mars mexico monster monday mythic monday mythology nasa new york city nobel prize presidential election russia soccer space space exploration syria syrian civil war Terrorism ukraine united kingdom united states vladimir putin world war ii