The Gulf of Eilat is home to 1,270 species of fish, over 3,000 species of invertebrates and corals, dozens of bird species, 4 species of sea turtles, and over 10 species of marine mammals. The Gulf of Eilat is relatively small, and its dimensions reach 1% of the total area of the Red Sea, which is also not large on a global scale. It is as deep as it is – 1,860m – and its opening to the Red Sea itself is shallow and narrow. Water temperatures are borderline: less than 20°C in winter, and the salinity is also extreme, 4.1% salts. These two severely limit the distribution of flora and fauna. Despite all this, the reefs of the Red Sea and its bays are known for their richness and biodiversity.
See the List of reef fish of the Red Sea
Jean-Jacques Dussumier (1792–1883) was a French voyager and merchant from Bordeaux. He is known as a collector of zoological species from southern Asia and regions around the Indian Ocean between 1816 and 1840. These collections were later studied and classified by French zoologists such as Georges Cuvier, Achille Valenciennes, among others.
In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus described the Pisces as:
Always inhabiting the waters; are swift in their motion and voracious in their appetites. They breathe by means of gills, which are generally united by a bony arch; swim by means of radiate fins, and are mostly covered over with cartilaginous scales. Besides the parts they have in common with other animals, they are furnished with a nictitant membrane, and most of them with a swim-bladder, by the contraction or dilatation of which, they can raise or sink themselves in their element at pleasure.
Cardiocephaloides longicollis is a species of flukes. The life cycle of C. longicollis is asexual as well as complex. Its asexual stage resides in the body of whelks where it replicates many times, and eventually its eggs are dispersed in the water through feces. C.longicollis begin their early life as free swimming miracidia larvae in the water. They go on to infect snails, and a variety of fishes, usually second intermediate host, in the form of a cercariae. While C.longicollis has previously been recorded in 19 fish species, researchers have found 12 other species which are viable hosts for C.longicollis making for a grand total of 31 aquatic species. The final host for this parasite are the gulls that eat the infected fish in which the parasite has formed cysts in.