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Ocean giants

The warm waters of the Indian Ocean are home to some of the largest, most spectacular fish, mammals, and other sea creatures to be found anywhere on Earth.

Great white shark

The most feared fish in the ocean, this powerful killer shark is common off Southern Africa, where it preys on Cape fur seals.

Giant tortoise

The largest population of giant tortoises (152,000) live on Aldabra, north of Madagascar. The biggest weighs 793 Ib (360 kg)!

Manta ray

The manta ray is a plankton-eating giant that “flies” through the ocean open-mouthed, filtering the tiny animals from water.

Komodo dragon

Measuring up to 10 ft (3 m) long, the world's largest lizard lives only on the island of Komodo, where it is the top predator.

Whale shark

Biggest of all fish, the whale shark feeds on plankton. Despite growing to a huge 46 ft (14 m) long, this fish is relatively harmless.

Saltwater crocodile

This hunter lives mainly in mangroves, but often swims out to sea. It is very dangerous and kills around 1,000 people each year!

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Volcanic

Indonesia

jThe Indian Ocean floor Igrinds beneath another piąte of Earth’s crust that lies under Indonesia. The long, curved boundary is marked by an underwater chasm called the Java Trench.

i Molten rock erupting Ifrom the edge of the overlying piąte has created a chain of volcanoes that formed Sumatra, Java, and other islands.

iThe volcanoes include Ithe island of Krakatau between Sumatra and Java. When it erupted in 1883, the explosion caused waves up to 138 ft (42 m) high that killed at least 36,000 people!

iThe region is also an learthąuake zonę—it was a powerful earthguake in the Java Trench that caused the Asian Tsunami of 2004.

IORD BREAKER

Weighing up to 37 Ib (17 kg), the coco-de-mer is the

world’s biggest seed. It floats in the sea to other islands, but despite this, the parent ' tree grows in just one valley v in the Seychelles.

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Ocean currents flowing west around Southern clash with storm waves moving east, building colossal “rogue waves” up to 66 ft (20 m) high waves can endanger large ships, and several I disappeared from these waters without a tracę

28.4 million sq miles

(73.6 million sq km) The area of the Indian Ocean

12,760 ft

(3,980 m) The average depth of the ocean

7,258 m

(23,812 ft) The maximum depth of the ocean, in the Java Trench

72°F

(22°C) The minimum surface temperaturę in the tropical Indian Ocean

9

The average annual number of tropical cyclones in the tropical Indian Ocean sińce 2000

Islands in the Sun

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Maldives

The Maldives are low-lying coral islands surrounded by coral reefs, but the islands are endangered by rising sea levels.

Seychelles

These islands were separated from the Indian continent around 65 million years ago by the spreading rift of the Mid-lndian Ridge.

Aldabra

Just north of Madagascar, Aldabra is a huge coral atoli— a reef crowning an old, extinct volcano that has sunk under the waves.

Reunion

Lying over a hot spot below Earth’s crust, this island has a volcano that erupts every few years, spilling molten rock into its tropical forests.