Importance in The Food Chain
These creatures, which are about the size of a lentil, are eaten by various marine species, including a wide variety of fish that are, in turn, consumed by penguins and polar bears. The sea butterflies form the sole food source of their relatives, the Gymnosomata. They are also consumed by sea birds, whales, and commercially important fish, which they can render unsaleable if consumed in large quantities.
Read more about this topic: Sea Butterfly
Famous quotes containing the words importance, food and/or chain:
“We have been told over and over about the importance of bonding to our children. Rarely do we hear about the skill of letting go, or, as one parent said, “that we raise our children to leave us.” Early childhood, as our kids gain skills and eagerly want some distance from us, is a time to build a kind of adult-child balance which permits both of us room.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion (20th century)
“Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)