Thursday, March 26, 2015

FLORIDA AQUARIUM - Deep water fish & Bait Balls

by Robin

I think this may be a squirrel fish but not 100% certain.

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Pompano.... which is not a deep water fish but in that tank.  Oh well.

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I am look-down obsessed.  They are fast-swimming and I took dozens of photos just to get a couple clear ones.

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I think red snapper, but the color is absent under the blue water.
I dunno.... the eyes don't look right.  Maybe it is something else.
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Alamo or lesser amberjacks.  Maybe some Crevelle Jacks thrown in (bottom) too.
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My buddy!!

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Nurse shark.

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Black grouper!!

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Sea Turtle - star of the show!

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Sand Tiger shark pictures!

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Why hello babe!

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Who needs a dentist??  Not you!

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When you see bae with someone else..........       (you may have a loose tooth!)

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I just loved these bait ball pictures.

The first two are taken from the top of the tank during our behind-the-scenes tour.
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This is from down below.

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And here are pictures of the boys together.

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I had a little free time with my eldest while the class was doing a squid dissection.  Seems like I just dissected a LOT of squid on Saturday while offshore fishing, so I opted out of that.  Hope you think these are as funny as we think they are.

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We ended up at the show, watching the divers and answering questions about sea life.  I didn't downsize any of those pictures.  Maybe next free day.

This is the walkway out of the tank area.  It is actually smoke falling down and then a projector runs a movie onto the smoke.  Then, they walked through it.  Cool, almost-stain glass, effect!!

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Happy Spring Break everyone!

Robin

FLORIDA AQUARIUM - Coral Reefs & Shallows

by Robin

I really don't know their specific names but a lot of these are anemones.  They had this great anemone petting tank.

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I had so much fun shooting these.

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The seahorse was sleepy.  And there were large crowds waiting for me to leave.

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This might technically be a deep-water fish, but he was in with anemones.
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Stingrays were in the mangrove area.

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Little puffer fish!

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He's so much cuter than the ones we find offshore.

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Not sure what type of octopus this was.  Little guy. Cute.

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Lionfish!

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Sting ray pool.

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I love petting sting rays!

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They put a gag grouper (snook in the background) in the mangrove tank.   We usually find these in 150 ft+ of water.  I think they may grow as babies in mangroves, but this is a full size adult.

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Isn't she gorgeous???

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Hogfish snapper  - these are found around coral.

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Happy Spring Break!

Robin

FLORIDA AQUARIUM - WETLANDS

by Robin

On Monday,

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We joined up with other biology & Marine biology students for a behind-the-scenes tour & dissection of a squid at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.

I wanted to share with you my photos from that trip.  There are so many, that I will break them down into categories.

Here are the wetland animals.

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Spoonbill Roseate.

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Variety of ducks.

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Lemurs

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Gecko

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I have many more photos of the red fish, snook and so forth.  I need to keep downsizing them.


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Blessings,

Robin