Hammerhead Shark © Florida Sea Grant
Hammerhead Shark © Florida Sea Grant
You can certainly expect to encounter fish if you are around the waters on Pensacola Beach. Their most common characteristics are a backbone, gills, scales and fins. Some of the things that differentiate fish from one another are their habitat, cartilage, the shape of their head, where the mouth is located, fin type and average size of the adult fish. They are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates on the planet.
When you think about the size of the Gulf, it is rather remarkable that 69% of species found in the northern Gulf live on the bottom where there are more places to hide from predators. This is a very different lifestyle than that of the open water “ram-jetters” – that basically never stop swimming.
Content for this section was provided by Rick O’Connor, the Florida Sea Grant agent for Escambia County. The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (UF/IFAS) partners with coastal counties to provide education, research, outreach and extension programs. You may reach him at roc1@ufl.edu and find out more at https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/escambia.