Ireland's Oceans

Ocean Habitats (1x4)

Air date: Jul 13, 2014

The last programme in Ireland's Ocean looks at fish and crustaceans and how they have adapted to living in different marine habitats around Ireland. Sand is our most common sea floor habitat and creatures have adapted wonderfully to use it for both camouflage and shelter. We see flatfish and crabs, whose skin colour exactly matches the sandy bottoms, and their predators such as stingrays hunting over the sands. The thousands of species of seaweeds in Ireland provide a fertile habitat for smaller creatures. We see how some creatures manage to grow seaweeds on their shells for camouflage, while urchins actually eat the kelp. While most animals sleep during the night, in the sea a new wave of creatures come to life. Little Cuttles are an amazing creature capable of changing their body colour several times a second, we meet them hunting, dancing and mating at night time on the sea floor off our Atlantic coast.