The great white shark is one of the largest living shark species (average length of about four metres). With its spindle-shaped body, dorso-ventrally elongated caudal fin (high aspect ratio) and sickle-shaped dorsal fin the great white shark is well adapted to a thunniform swimming style, i.e. the tail fin serves as the main propulsion, while the body carries out almost no oscillations. This allows both slow endurance swimming with high energy efficiency and very fast swimming over short distances.

The emperor penguin weights up to 46 kg and is the tallest of the living penguin species. Its diet includes fish, krill and other crustaceans as well as cephalopods, such as squid. Aptenodytes forsteri is an underwater flyer using its forelimbs for propulsion and can remain submerged up to 18 minutes, diving to a depth of 535 m. The young are born in breeding colonies during the Antarctic winter. The average lifespan is 20, but some may reach an age of 50 years.

Perlboots are found in warm regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans primarily near reefs where they slowly dive up and down in a day-night rhythm. They are the only cephalopods with an external shell (Ectocochlea) which still exist today. The shell consists of the body chamber for the animal and the phragmocone which is divided into camerae by septa. The camerae are linked by a siphuncle for buoyancy regulation by means of gas exchange.

One (Comorian coelacanth, dark blue, discovered in 1938) of two endemic species (the second one is the Indonesian coelacanth, brown, described in 1999) of extant actinistian lobe-finned fishes found in depths of 150 to 700 m. Latimeria moves slowly by drifting or swimming and gives birth to live young. The degenerated lung / swim bladder is filled with fat. The Comorian coelacanth stays in caves during daylight and is caught outside at night.

The leatherback sea turtle is the largest living turtle and can easily be distinguished from other extant sea turtles by the lack of a bony shell. Instead oily flesh under the integument of the body causes a leathery texture of the skin. This rather deep diving reptile has the most hydrodynamic body design of any sea turtle and a pair of large, flattened forelimbs (flippers) tapering towards their ends, like wings, which are be used for underwater flight.

The common cuttlefish is one of the largest and best-known cuttlefish species. It is native to at least the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, and Baltic Sea where it lives on seabeds. It spends the summer and spring inshore for spawning and then moves to depths of 100 to 200 meters during autumn and winter. Several defensive mechanisms help to protect it against its numerous predators: a funnel to shoot water out for a quick escape, ink to confuse enemies and camouflage abilities.

The dark-coloured bowhead whale is a filter-feeder inhabiting eutrophic Arctic and sub-Arctic waters during the entire year. The species has the largest mouth of all animals. The filter-feeder system (baleen) in the mouth is used to strain plankton like krill and other crustaceans. The whale is a slow swimmer, can dive up to 40 minutes and uses underwater sounds for communication. Weight: 75 (males) to 100 tons (females). Life span: 150 to 200 years.

The thornback ray is frequent and probably one of the most common rays encountered by divers. It is found along the European coast and the Atlantic coast of Africa as well as the Mediterranean Sea coast of North Africa where it lives on sedimentary seabeds at depths between 10 to 60 metres. Like all rays, the thornback ray has a flattened body with broad, wing-like pectoral fins. Its back is covered with numerous thorny spines, as is the underside in older females.