Ocean Animals: Coral Reefs, Jellyfish, Octopus and Plankton

A dive into the ocean beyond the famous big animals: the coral and the sea anemone, both animals although they look like plants; the jellyfish drifting with the current; the octopus and the squid, the cleverest invertebrates in the sea; the lobster, the crab and the starfish on the seabed; the ray gliding over the sand; and the plankton that feeds almost everything else.

It is a hard puzzle for marine biology fans, with five diagonal words. Ray, only three letters, is the trickiest find.

Ocean Animal Vocabulary: 12 Words to Find

Words run across, up and down, and diagonally; 5 of the 12 read backwards. The longest word is Jellyfish, with 9 letters.

Anemone: A sea anemone, a soft animal that looks like a flower and catches food with stinging tentacles.
Coral: Tiny animals called polyps that build hard skeletons together, forming coral reefs over thousands of years.
Crab: A crustacean with a hard shell and ten legs that usually walks sideways.
Jellyfish: A soft, see-through sea animal with no brain, heart or bones that drifts with the current and stings with its tentacles.
Lobster: A large crustacean with a hard shell and two big claws that lives on the sea floor.
Marine: Of the sea.
Octopus: A soft-bodied sea animal with eight arms, three hearts and blue blood, known for its intelligence.
Plankton: Tiny plants and animals that drift in the water and are the base of the ocean food chain.
Ray: A flat fish related to sharks, with wide, wing-like fins it uses to glide over the sea floor.
Seahorse: A small fish with a horse-shaped head that swims upright. The male carries the eggs in a pouch.
Squid: A fast-swimming sea mollusk with eight arms and two long tentacles that squirts ink to escape.
Starfish: A sea star, an animal with five or more arms that lives on the sea floor. It is not a fish.

How to Solve the Ocean Animal Word Search

"Squid" has the only Q and runs straight down; "jellyfish" has the only J and a double L, on a diagonal. "Plankton" reads normally across and has the only K. "Ray", just three letters running upward, is the easiest word to miss.

Marine Biology Activities for the Classroom

Sort the animals into vertebrates and invertebrates: only one group has a backbone.
Ask students which animals in the list look like plants but are animals: coral and anemone.
Build a simple ocean food chain that starts with plankton.