Aquarium Trip

     Last Thursday, our Biology class went to the Vancouver Aquarium for the day. We were finally able to put a face to the names of the marine animals we learned about that past week. One's teacher can describe in great elaborate detail the movement of a jellyfish or the size of a beluga, but words cannot accurately illustrate these wonders. And so, it is necessary to see these amazing creatures with our own eyes to truly understand their fascinating lives. Additionally, one can learn many things one never knew from simply reading the descriptions beside the tanks.

       It feels good to glance in at the jellyfish and be able to identify their various parts and the stage of life that they are in; to touch the anenome and feel its sticky quality, knowing that it is in fact trying to sting you! In my opinion, this type of information will be the most valuable that I will learn in school, because it directly relates to the living world around me. In my opinion, there is far more satisfaction in being able to explain to someone the life cycle of a sponge, for example, than to be able to calculate the height of some building with trigonometry. Biology is the study of life, and what is more important or relevant than life itself?

      I enjoyed visiting the aquarium for the spectacular learning experience and just maybe the adorable sea otters were a little plus. :)

Here are some photos I took at the aquarium:

These are clown fish and sea anemones. Sea anemones will normally sting fish which are unlucky enough to come close to their tentacles and then digest them. However, the clown fish is immune to its stings and actually shares in a mutual symbiotic relationship with it. The clown fish is protected from some of its enemies by the anemone's stinging tentacles and the anemone, in return, is protected by the clown fish from other fish which would normally eat its tentacles.

This is a sea otter. They spend a lot of time cleaning their coats because it helps them to remain waterproof and insulated against the cold.

Before 1990, sea otters could be found from Russia to Mexico and in the waters of the North Pacific. They were reintroduced to Washington and Oregon in 1970 and it is now estimated that 500 sea otters exist in Washington today.

Next to the sea otters' tank were the green sea anemones.

This is Horn Coral. I picked it as the marine invertebrate that I found most interesting. It is actually a very aggressive coral and will kill most other corals near to it. This coral's colour is, interestingly enough, fluorescent green.

These are supposed to be the belugas but the picture quality is pretty awful. Their scientific name is Delphinapterus leucas. There are two belugas, named Aurora and Qila, at the aquarium.

This is a spotted seahorse. The movement of a seahorse is most interesting. It floats delicately in the water, its side fins beating furiously, much like a hummingbird's wings.

An open brain coral.

A starry flounder. It has a couple of quite interesting adaptations. First, it has pigment cells which allow it to change its colouring to suit its environment. Second, it undergoes a metamorphosis in which both eyes migrate to one side of the fish, the dorsal side. Most Starry Flounders are left eyed.

Moon jellyfish. They move by pushing water out of their bell, propelling themselves forward in a pulsing motion. Moon jellies have a very unique digestive adaptation. Food collects on the surface of the moon jelly, where it is then captured by the jellyfish's mucus and then passed on to the lappets. The food is then carried to eight different canals which all lead to the stomach.

Unfortunately we were unable to find the Pacific Octopus, but above is a picture of what it looks like. The white suction cups underneath its eight arms serve to help it cling to things, grasp prey and other objects. The Pacific Octopus is known as one of nature's greatest predators because it is so large yet it is incredibly stealthy, and it will eat practically anything it can catch, including birds!

Steller sea lions eat many different kinds of fishes, including pacific herring, pollock, salmon, cod, and rockfishes. They can also eat octopi  and squids!

The caiman crocodile. This one was born in Fort Worth, Texas, before being transported to the Vancouver Aquarium by the National Zoological Park in Washington, DC. The colour of the crocodile is a muddy gray. This colouring would be beneficial in capturing prey as it would blend well into rocks, water and mud.

This is the Arapaima, the largest fish in the aquarium.

This is the red hook silver dollar. It is a vegetarian fish that can eat all of the plants in an aquarium if one is not careful!

A piranha. They pose the biggest threat to humans when we are fishing for them and removing the fishhooks from their mouths as they can bite one quite badly.

A shark. They have no bones. Instead, sharks possess cartilage, which is a strong, flexible material that is found all throughout their bodies.

A fish found in the shark tank. Sea turtles were also present.

This is the giant red sea urchin, also known as Strongylocentrotus franciscanus. They often lodge themselves into cracks and crevices to prevent themselves from being swept up in the ocean currents.

An archer fish. It feeds in a very interesting way. The archer fish will swim directly beneath an insect above the water surface, then stick its snout through the water and shoot the insect with a powerful stream of water. If the archer fish is successful, the insect falls into the water, right next to the fish and it is devoured.

This sea turtle's name is Schoona. She is a Hawksbill sea turtle.

Fungi

      This past week in my Biology class we have been learning about Fungi, the strange yet fascinating organisms that are neither plants nor animals which seem to be able to live in any environment. They come in a startling variety of shapes, colours, sizes and species and they are found everywhere!
      Last Friday, our class went on a Fungi Hunt to discover the different types of fungi existing right near our school in British Columbia. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the hunt, so I cannot attest to the nature of those fungi which exist near our school. However, I can share some of the interesting information I learned this past week about these intriguing heterotrophic eukaryotes. But what exactly do those two long words mean about fungi? Fungi are heterotrophic, which means they must acquire their nutrients from outside sources. Unlike plants, they are not photosynthetic. They are also known as eukaryotes, meaning that their cells have nuclei and organelles. I learned many new things this past week about fungi that I never knew before.
      For one, although most people know that mold is caused by spores, it was new to me to learn that mold was actually a type of fungi. When a piece of bread goes moldy, it is best not to eat any part of it because once the fungal spores land on the bread they begin developing hyphae, which are filamentous threads, that make their way all the way into the piece of bread. The black we see on top of the bread is actually the fungus' sporangia cases. Black bread mold, or Rhizopus stolonifer is of the phylum Zygomycota, which brings me to the next new thing I learned.
      There are actually many different phyla within the kingdom fungi. These include the Oomycetes, Ascomycetes, Zygomycetes, Deuteromycetes and Basidiomycetes. The Deuteromycetes are set apart from these other phyla because they are known as 'imperfect fungi'; imperfect meaning that they cannot reproduce sexually like most other fungi. They are infamous for causing fungal infections such as ringworm and athlete's foot.
     Perhaps the most interesting/frightening thing I learned this week was that fungal spores are EVERYWHERE. There are spores in your kitchen, your school, your bedroom, even right under your nose at this very moment. Fungi are so small that most of the time we hardly notice them, but their ecological importance is immeasurable, and it has been enlightening getting to understand their secret lives.

Below are some pictures of fungi native to BC. (from google)