A Naxos snorkeling tour means floating at the sea surface with a mask and a snorkel off the shore of Naxos. This page belongs to the Greece tours collection. It starts with freediving, moves to five sea animals of the Mediterranean, the ornate wrasse, the moray, the parrotfish, the gilt-head bream and the sea anemone, and closes with four short answers. Hard words are explained, and each fact comes from a reference article.
What does a Naxos snorkeling tour mean?
A Naxos snorkeling tour is a surface swim in a mask with a breathing tube. The sea lies off Naxos, an island of the Cyclades. A diver training agency defines skin diving as snorkeling-like recreation with short breath-hold dives.
Freediving is practised for recreational, occupational and sporting purposes. Occupational means done as part of a job. Freediving means diving while holding the breath, without a tank of air. A snorkel is a short pipe that lets a swimmer breathe while facing down. Surface means the top of the water. A Naxos snorkeling tour uses that tube.
Other freediving activities include underwater rugby, underwater target shooting and mermaiding. Underwater football is played in a pool with mask, snorkel and fins. Fins are flat blade-like shoes that push a swimmer through the water. Mermaiding is swimming with a long tail fin.
Record disciplines exist that are not held in competitions and only set world records. A discipline is one fixed type of dive or event. A record is the best result ever measured. World means across the whole planet. A Naxos snorkeling tour sets no records.
- Skin diving: A diver training agency defines skin diving as snorkeling-like recreation with short breath-hold dives.
- Purposes: Freediving is practised for recreational, occupational and sporting purposes alike.
- Pool: Underwater football is played in a pool with mask, snorkel and fins.
Freediving, skin diving and snorkeling all rest on holding the breath near the surface. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on the plainest of them. The next sections turn to fish and other sea animals of the Mediterranean Sea.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, what does the ornate wrasse add?
A Naxos snorkeling tour brings up the ornate wrasse. This fish is native to rocky coasts in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. People also call it the circus fish. Its scientific name is Thalassoma pavo. Native means living there naturally.
The ornate wrasse can grow to 25 centimetres long. The heads of males are red with blue marks. Females are greenish-brown and carry five bluish vertical stripes. Vertical means running up and down. A stripe is a long narrow band of colour. A Naxos snorkeling tour brings these colours to mind.
It lives on rocky areas where algae and seagrass beds grow. It is found at depths from 0 to 50 metres. Algae are simple plant-like growths found in water. Seagrass is a flowering plant rooted in the sea floor. A Naxos snorkeling tour recalls such places.
Its diet is small molluscs and crustaceans. A mollusc is a soft animal with no bones, such as a snail. A crustacean has a hard shell and jointed legs, as a crab does. Females change into males, and this shows as a colour change. A colour change marks the switch from female to male.
- Size: The ornate wrasse can grow to 25 centimetres in length.
- Colour: Males have red heads with blue marks, and females are greenish-brown with bluish stripes.
- Depth: The fish is found at depths from 0 to 50 metres over rocky areas.
The ornate wrasse is a bright fish of rocky shores that eats molluscs and crustaceans and changes sex. Its colours differ between males and females. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on this fish as a plain backdrop. Next, the page turns to an eel.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, what does the Mediterranean moray bring?
A Naxos snorkeling tour brings up the Mediterranean moray, an eel with the scientific name Muraena helena. It belongs to the family Muraenidae, a group of eels. It can reach a length of 1.5 metres and can weigh over 15 kilograms.
Its colour varies from dark grey to dark brown, with fine dark spots. It lives in the eastern Atlantic, from the British Isles to Senegal. It prefers rocky bottoms as its habitat. A habitat is the home ground of an animal. A Naxos snorkeling tour recalls such rocky ground.
It lives at depths between 1 and 801 metres. It is a solitary and territorial species. Solitary means living alone. Territorial means guarding an area against others. It spends much of the day in cavities and clefts between rocks. A cleft is a narrow gap.
It hunts fish, crabs and cephalopods. A cephalopod is a sea animal such as an octopus or a squid. In Sardinia’s Bay of Argentiera, a coordinated hunt by a dusky grouper and this moray was documented. A Naxos snorkeling tour brings such sea hunters to mind.
- Name: The Mediterranean moray has the scientific name Muraena helena and belongs to the family Muraenidae.
- Size: It can reach a length of 1.5 metres and can weigh over 15 kilograms.
- Habitat: It prefers rocky bottoms and lives at depths between 1 and 801 metres.
The Mediterranean moray is a solitary eel of rocky bottoms that hides by day in gaps between rocks. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on this animal as a plain backdrop. Next, the page turns to a fish that feeds on algae.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, what does the Mediterranean parrotfish add?
A Naxos snorkeling tour brings up the Mediterranean parrotfish, also known as the European parrotfish. It lives along rocky shores in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic. Adults reach a maximum length of about 52 centimetres, or 20 inches. The fish is named Sparisoma cretense.
Its range runs from Portugal south to Senegal. The main adult habitat is rocky reefs, especially in areas with macroalgae. A reef is a rocky rise near the top of the sea. Macroalgae are large seaweeds. Senegal is a country in West Africa. A Naxos snorkeling tour recalls such reefs.
Adult females are red, with a greyish saddle shape on the back that has a yellow edge. A Naxos snorkeling tour brings such colours to mind. Adult males are overall greyish with paler underparts and no distinctive markings. Underparts are the lower side of the body. A saddle shape is a patch like a horse’s saddle.
It feeds mainly on epilithic and coralline algae. Epilithic means growing on rock. It breeds mainly during summer, from July to September. Spawning happens around dawn or dusk. Spawning means laying eggs in the water. The pelagic eggs hatch into free-swimming larvae. Pelagic eggs float in open water.
- Names: The Mediterranean parrotfish is also known as the European parrotfish.
- Range: It lives along rocky shores in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, from Portugal south to Senegal.
- Food: It feeds mainly on epilithic and coralline algae growing on rock.
The Mediterranean parrotfish grazes algae on rocky reefs and breeds in summer. Females and males look different. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on this fish as a plain backdrop. Next, the page turns to a fish of seagrass beds.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, what does the gilt-head bream bring?
A Naxos snorkeling tour brings up the gilt-head bream. It is a marine ray-finned fish of the family Sparidae. It is also known as the gilthead, dourade or silver seabream. The species reaches a maximum total length of 70 centimetres.
Its range runs from Great Britain and Ireland to possibly as far south as Senegal. It is found over sand and in seagrass beds, from 1 to 150 metres deep. In a ray-finned fish, thin bony rays prop up the fins. A Naxos snorkeling tour recalls such sea floors.
It is a euryhaline species that enters brackish water. Euryhaline means able to live in water of different saltiness. Brackish water is part fresh and part sea water. Young fish stay no deeper than 30 metres, while adults live in deeper water. A Naxos snorkeling tour brings such water to mind.
Its back is blue-grey and its sides are silvery. It feeds mainly on shellfish and also on plant material. Shellfish are sea animals with a shell, such as mussels. Gilt-head bream are sequential hermaphrodites that mature as males by age two. A sequential hermaphrodite changes sex during its life.
- Name: It is also known as the gilthead, dourade, gilt-head seabream, European seabream or silver seabream.
- Size: Its published maximum weight is 17.2 kilograms, and its maximum total length is 70 centimetres.
- Colour: Its back is blue-grey and its sides are silvery in colour.
The gilt-head bream is a silvery fish of seagrass beds and open sea floor that enters brackish water. Its sex changes from male to female with age. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on this fish as a plain backdrop. Next, the page turns to an animal that clings.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, what does the sea anemone add?
A Naxos snorkeling tour brings up the sea anemone, a predatory marine invertebrate in the order Actiniaria. Its colourful look led to the name, after the Anemone, a flowering land plant. A typical sea anemone is a single polyp.
The body is a column topped by an oral disc with tentacles around a central mouth. A polyp is a simple tube-shaped body. An invertebrate is an animal that has no backbone. Tentacles can be pulled inside the body or extended to catch passing prey. A Naxos snorkeling tour recalls such soft-bodied animals.
Sea anemones attach to the surface with an adhesive foot called a basal or pedal disc. Clownfish are the best-known fish partners of sea anemones. Sea anemones are predators that catch prey, the animals they hunt, within reach of their tentacles. A Naxos snorkeling tour brings these partners to mind.
Stichodactyla helianthus is reported to trap sea urchins with its carpet-like oral disc. The fertilized egg becomes a planula larva, which develops directly into a new polyp. Sea anemones can reproduce asexually by budding, fragmentation or binary fission. A larva is the young form of an animal. Asexually means without eggs and sperm.
- Body: The body is a column topped by an oral disc with tentacles around a central mouth.
- Foot: Sea anemones attach to the surface with an adhesive foot called a basal or pedal disc.
- Young: The fertilized egg becomes a planula larva, which develops directly into a new polyp.
The sea anemone is a predator named after a flower that clings to rock with an adhesive foot. Clownfish are its best-known fish partners. A Naxos snorkeling tour draws on this animal only as background. The questions section follows.
Which questions do swimmers ask before a Naxos snorkeling tour?
A Naxos snorkeling tour raises plain questions about clear water, rocks, shirts and seaweed. A Secchi disk measures water clarity. A limpet clings to rock. A rash guard is a thin athletic shirt. Sea lettuce is a green alga.
On a Naxos snorkeling tour, which disk measures how clear the water is?
A Secchi disk is a plain white circular disk, 30 cm across, that measures water transparency. Angelo Secchi created the disk in 1865. The depth where the disk is no longer visible measures the transparency of the water. Transparency means how clear the water is.
Which small shellfish clings to rocks behind a Naxos snorkeling tour?
Limpets are aquatic snails with a conical shell and a strong, muscular foot. A limpet scrapes algae off the surrounding rock with its radula, a kind of tongue. All species of Patellogastropoda are limpets. Algae are simple plant-like growths found in water.
Which top covers the skin behind a Naxos snorkeling tour?
A rash guard is an athletic shirt made of spandex and nylon or polyester. The name reflects that the shirt protects the wearer against rashes caused by abrasion. Rash guards are thought to have originated in Australia. Abrasion means rubbing that wears the skin.
Which green seaweed grows behind a Naxos snorkeling tour?
Sea lettuces make up the genus Ulva, a group of edible green algae. Individual blades of Ulva can grow to be more than 400 millimetres in size. Sea lettuce is eaten by sea animals such as manatees and sea hares. A blade is a flat, leaflike part.