Jewels of the Sea - Seagrass Meadows Just below the surface you can find lush, green sea grass meadows. Watch out for giant cuttlefish as they swim past or try to spot crabs, sea snails, pearl oysters or octopuses hiding in the grass. As well as being an important food for dugongs, black swans also love to eat sea grass. Seagrass roots absorb nutrients but unlike land plants to not take up water.
Seagrasses have land based ancestors, and only returned to the sea in recent evolutionary history.
Most seagrass species produce flowers in autumn or summer. One square metre of seagrass can generate up to 10 litres of oxygen per day. Small plants and animals live on the stems and leaves of the seagrass. These include yellow sponges and sea mosses. Look closely and you can see small crustaceans like seed shrimps, sea fleas, sea lice, small pebble crabs and pea crabs.