Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 51
At the Pohnpei cleaning station tiny wrasses can be seen darting in and out of a
manta's gill slits as they remove parasites. Just behind them are two sharksuckers,
Echeneis
naucrates
(relatives of the more familiar remoras), who are using the suckers on the tops of
their heads to hitch a ride on the ray.
of marine animal genera (groupings of species) for which we have a good
and complete fossil record have gradually increased (with some temporary
retreats) from a low of about 200 at the end of the Permo-Triassic event
to about 6,000 today. These increases are paralleled by increases in the
numbers of animal genera that live on the land. Plants have also increased
in diversity, though we are less certain about their numbers because the
plant fossil record is not as complete. It is clear from these trends that
catastrophes small and large have not halted evolutionary diversifi cation.
