The Aquarium Field Trip

The Aquarium Field Trip

On February 28^th, I went on a field trip to Seattle Aquarium from 9:30am to 3:00 pm. I choose to go to the aquarium because the date of the trip was convenient with my tight schedule, and also I have never been to the aquarium before. Plus, water creatures are awesome. The trip to the aquarium was so much fun and informative at the same time. We got to see the feeding of seals, fishes and the octopus Zina. We also got the chance to touch the algae, starfish and other creatures in the tidal pool area.  I spent most my time in the tidal pool area observing the animals and see how they adapted to living in the shore and resist the drift by the wave and how they avoid drought.  

In the tidal pool area, from the phylum Echinoderm I saw the sea cucumber, sea star and sea urchin. Even though they are in the same phylum, but they had different adaptations and appearance. The sea cucumber had an elongated tubular body and soft to touch and they had soft spiky surface (figure 1). they were mostly attached to the bottom of the pool and they moved by using their tentacles which helps them resist the wave action. They eat food debris at the bottom of the pool by using the oral podia around their mouth (Video 1). They protect themselves from predators by cutting out part of their intestine and spit it out as an easy meal for their predators, however they become unable to eat until they grow their intestine back.  On the other hand, the sea stars from their name they looked like a star, and they had gills sticking out if their body for gas exchange and when I touched it, they retracted their gill back (figure 2). The sea stars are capable of moving, but they were less mobile (sleeping I guess). They were also located at the bottom of the pool, and they ate restaurant quality clams during our visit by laying on top of the clam and used the tentacles or suckers on their feet to open and crack the shell (figure 3). Sea Urchins have a spiky body and they were located at the bottom of the pool too (figure 4), and they used their tentacles attach themselves to the bottom of the pool to resist the drift by the waves, and they use their spiny body to hunt for pray, but they feed mainly on algae. Just like other Echinoderm phylum, Sea Cucumber, Sea Urchin and Sea Star have a water vascular system. In one of the pool I noticed that all he animals were lined up close to the water stream as a source of their food.

 Video 1. Sea Cucumber Eating. Oral podia extended to collect food debris in the water. 

 

Figure 1. Sea Star and Sea Cucumber in Tidal Pool Area

Figure 2. Sea Star with Gills attached to their Body in Tidal Pool Area

Figure 3.  Sea star eating and his body is arched over the pray.  

Figure 4. Sea urchin 

In the bird and shore exhibits, it demonstrated 3 different environments (Sandy beach, Rocky mountain, and sea cliff) where the birds have certain adaptation to live in each environment. In the sea cliff, it’s mainly occupied by seabirds that spend most of their time in the ocean and return to shore during nesting season. the make their nest on the cliff, and they have small peaks. These birds spend most of their time diving (figure 6) in the ocean and their habitat in threatened by the human plastic waste in the ocean. While, the rocky shore is home for marine birds like Black Oystercatcher (figure 7), and they nest on the rocky shore. These birds use their long peak to eat the marine invertebrates available in their habitat like mussels. Their habitat is threatened by human development and waste of oil, littler, and chemical spills.  In the Sandy shores, birds make this place their home at the edges of water to nest. The birds in this habitat have different sizes of beaks, so some of them feed on insects and other some feed on shrimp, which makes them able to live in the same habitat without competing on food. However, due to human growth and industrialization, they experience habitat loss.

Figure 6. Tufted Puffin Birds in Cliff Shores (Diving birds) 

Figure 7.  Black Oystercatcher in Rocky Shores.

Just like the birds, wild pacific salmons also experience habitat loss as they migrate through our local watershed (figure 8). The level of water pollution is so high and that makes their environment unfit to live in. They also experience over fishing and significant decrease in their population. Wild salmon are endangered by the Hatchery fish. Hatchery fishes are salmons raised in captivity from egg to juvenile stages and they released to the stream to grow to adulthood. They compete with the wild salmon on food sources.

Figure 8. Pacific Wild Salmon 

As I mentioned before, the trip to the aquarium was so much informative and fun. I wish this post was not limited to 3 paragraphs so I can talk about all the wonderful creatures I saw. In the tidal pool area, I saw the Chitin from phylum Mollusca, and they looked exactly how they were pictured in our text book (figure 9). They eat by scraping food from the floor by their radula. Chitins in the pool were night territorial creatures, as they move at night and they go back to their area which makes them look like they are not moving at all. This field trip made me understand the animals in a better way. The most interesting finding was the octopus Zina (figure 10).  Zina is a pacific giant octopus and their life span is 3-4 years which is double the life span of other species of octopuses. pacific giant octopus live the first part of their life hunting and the last part looking for a mate and they hide to lay their eggs and they don’t eat again and they die after that. I felt that they live for one purpose only which is to lay eggs and that made me upset, but the really upsetting part for them is not finding the perfect mate and die without having any babies 😥😥. The aquarium will release Zina to the wild to find a mate and reproduce.  One last thing, the octopus have 3 hearts because their blood is copper based not iron, and copper is not good oxygen carrier. 

Figure 9. Chitin in Tidal Pool Area 

Figure 10. Pacific Giant Octopus. Sleepy Zina 😁