From the oldest living animals to the fastest animals in the ocean, they are all very extreme.
1. Sailfish
Sailfish are the fastest feeding animals in the ocean. They can move at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour – through schools of fish, stun them with their mouths, and swallow them in one bite. Their eyes and brain must work so fast that they need to be heated, using specialized heating muscles that line up the eyes and brain.
2. Bowhead whales
The bowhead whale is the oldest living mammal. This is evidenced by the discovery of a century-old brass harpoon tip in a scar on the whale's back in the 1990s. These harpoons have not been thrown at whales for more than a century. Thus, the same animals that were hunted in the 1990s also survived human attacks 100 years ago.
3. Deep water black coral
The oldest known animals are corals that live on the slopes of Hawaii — the deep sea, thousands of feet below the surface, where it's dark, cold, and slow. These black corals grow the width of a hair every year. The oldest known animal now lives longer than any other animal on Earth – 4,270 years old. This coral was alive until some Egyptian pyramids were built.
4. Pompeii worms
The animal most tolerant to temperature is the Pompeii worm, which lives in seafloor hot water vents, where hot water gushes from under the earth's crust under enormous pressure. The worm's tail is at the temperature of hot tea, but its tentacles — an inch away — are immersed in the icy waters of the deep sea. To understand how this amazing creature builds its cells and proteins in such temperature ranges, the genome of the Pompeii worm is being decoded.
5. Humpback whales
One of the most exuberant animal displays in the ocean is the humpback whale breakthrough. The huge fins on humpback whales were once thought to have a huge dragging force on whales because the fins were long and bumpy. But detailed tests have shown that the bulge actually reduces the drag created by the fins. Similar designs on fan blades have led to a new generation of low-drag, high-efficiency products.
6. Moby Dick
Moby whales have the best sonar in the ocean. Their swollen heads house "melons," a fat-filled space that focuses incoming sound waves. Moby whales need this extra acuity. They live in drift ice in narrow channels and need sonar to see breathing ice caves.
5. Narwhal
Narwhal brought legend to the Middle Ages - as a horn for unicorns. Narwhal tusks were collected in the polar regions of the North Atlantic and sold throughout Europe to aristocrats and collectors. It is said that drinking water with "unicorn horns" can prevent poisoning. Each tusk is a tooth that grows from the side of the mouth but is 10 to 14 feet long. Ivory has no known function — but future marine biologists have two clues: Most males have ivory, but few females do. Some narwhal whales have two.
8. Icefish
Antarctic icefish live in water that is even lower than freezing – 2 degrees below zero degrees Celsius. Seawater does not freeze at this temperature because it is rich in salt. The blood of icefish is not as salty as seawater; Instead, it prevents itself from freezing by using ice protein, sometimes called antifreeze protein, which attaches to ice crystals that form in the blood. Once the ice crystals are coated with antifreeze proteins, they can't stick together, so they don't grow. Antarctica's icefish have taken advantage of this adaptation to become very successful – accounting for 95% of the fish biomass around Antarctica.
9. Clownfish
The clownfish family is famous in Finding Nemo, but the real clownfish family is more peculiar than shown in the movie. Among the anemones where clownfish live, the largest fish is always female, who lays all its eggs. The next largest fish are functional males, fertilizing them. Many of the smaller clownfish are immature males. When the female dies or is eaten by a predator, the largest male changes sex to become female. At the same time, the largest immature male grows into a functional male that can fertilize an egg. This parenting conveyor system ensures a continuous supply of Nemos for babies.
10. Anglerfish
Anglerfish inhabit the deep sea, and they have puzzled marine biologists for a century. At first only female anglerfish were known. Where the men are and what they look like is a complete mystery. Parasitologists then began studying the worm-like parasites that usually attach to female anglerfish. What he found wasn't parasites, but male salmon—each undergoing a radical transformation. When the male anglerfish is small, he will find and attach to the female. First, his jaw dissolves, his blood fuses with the feminine. Then his brain disappeared and his guts shrank. Eventually he was nothing more than a testicle that fertilized a woman's eggs for the rest of his life.