Katie just wrote her report on krill and wanted to post it out there for everyone to see on her blog page! Enjoy!
Krill are small shrimp-like creatures that live in all the oceans of the world – even Antarctica. There are more krill than people in the whole world. Krill are not heavy, but all of them together weigh almost twice as much as all the people in the world. Usually krill are one to two centimeters, but some of them are six to fifteen centimeters.
Krill eat phytoplankton, zooplankton, and copepods. They have an important role in the food chain. Lots of different animals in all shapes and sizes eat krill. There are penguins, fish, seals, and even humpback whales. People also fish for krill. They are used for eating in Japan and Russia. Here in United States, they are used for feeding animals in aquariums, bait in sports fishing, and by drug companies.
Krill are made up of three parts: the cephalon (head), the thorax, and the abdomen. They are crustaceans and have an exoskeleton – which means their skeleton is on the outside of their body. On their head, they have compound eyes, like a housefly, and two antennae, like an ant. On their body, the have separate legs for swimming, feeding, and grooming (cleaning). Krill and shrimp have different gills. Krill have them on the outside and shrimp have them on the inside. That is how you can tell them apart.
and even a Ritz!