The visual barrier that divides our Grand Cayman blue iguanas’ habitat into his-and-her territories has come down, signaling the beginning of their breeding season. The rest of the year, iguanas Marley and Eleanor would defend their respective spaces with a lot of posturing, hissing and maybe even some tail whipping. But now they’re side by side basking on Eleanor’s favorite rock. Marley is “bluing up,” as senior aquarist Stacy Wozniak puts it. An increase in hormones causes a change in both lizards’ pigmentation cells, turning Marley bright blue and Eleanor powder blue. Check back for updates, or better yet, visit our Local Waters gallery to admire these endangered iguanas and look in on their love life.
Fantasea field trip sweepstakes winners visited Shedd Aquarium for a day of fun. A first-grade class from Trumbull Elementary School in Chicago and a fifth-grade class from Jerry Ross Elementary School in Crown Point, Indiana, won field trips to Shedd Aquarium with football greats James "Big Cat" Williams and Garrett Wolfe. Check out photos of their trip:
Students from Trumbull Elementary School meet James "Big Cat" Williams.
Since 1998, Shedd Aquarium has been a key partner with Project Seahorse, a marine conservation organization dedicated to studying and protecting seahorses while helping people who depend upon them for their livelihoods. While Project Seahorse has programs all over the world, it has maintained an active presence in the Philippines since its inception. Recently Shedd’s conservation and research leadership team visited the Philippines to meet with our conservation partner to see how the program has grown since our last visit many years ago. In the next few weeks we’ll share some of the trip highlights, with the first stop being an Apo Island visit.
Farmed arctic char brings back especially fond memories for me. It’s been a Right Bite team favorite for years, but I grew to appreciate this fish even more after I served as a judge in an arctic char recipe contest last fall. My fellow judges and I had a great afternoon restaurant-hopping and tasting all the wonderful and different ways this fish can be prepared.
For one male remora at Shedd, it's been tough to get a girl to let him "stick around" for Valentine's Day. Instinctively he has always wanted a large predatory fish or other marine animal to cling to for help finding food, transportation and protection. But he can recall countless rejections and brush-offs from the large fishes, who find him annoying and bothersome. This year, that feeling of solitude is all in the past. On Valentine's Day, our lovable remora will be happily gliding under the protection of a very special Shedd Aquarium lady.
Puiji’s calf, who turned 7 weeks old on Monday, is one plump little beluga. He has just about filled out his fetal folds, the deep wrinkles in his sides from when he was tucked in the womb. The trainers estimate that he’s gained at least 60 pounds since he was born, putting him at more than 220 pounds. He’s longer, too. Of course, he’s nursing from his mom and from the two other females in Puiji’s social group, Naya and Mauyak, so he’s getting plenty of nourishment.
At this point, the calf makes it look easy as he sails over to one whale or another to nurse. But in the beginning, imagine how hard it is when mom doesn’t have arms to cradle and baby doesn’t have hands to grasp – and both are swimming.
That’s why Shedd’s animal care team members wait anxiously for each beluga calf to figure out where the milk is and how to get it. They heaved a collective sigh of relief when Puiji’s calf started nursing when he was 24 hours old – thanks in large part to Puiji’s ability to guide the little guy to the right place while he was having early difficulties diving to reach her mammary glands.
In a matter of days, however, the calf became a nimble swimmer, ducking under mom, bumping her mammary glands with his head – stimulating milk production – and latching on for a meal.
When he nurses, he rolls his tongue into a soda-straw-like tube. Once the calf has his mouth firmly on the mammary, Puiji contracts the muscles around the gland to give him a high-pressure squirt of milk that is about 27 percent butterfat. (For comparison, half-and-half is about 11 percent, premium ice creams can run as high as 18 percent, and whipped cream is about 35 percent butterfat.) The calf nurses about every 30 minutes, getting two to six good long draws each time. And if Mom is tired but the calf wants more, he switches to Naya or Mauyak.
Be sure to visit Puiji’s calf soon in Polar Play Zone, and check out other beluga calf updates, including videos, downloadable activities, coupons, and more!
I said goodbye to everyone at Gumbo Limbo and headed north about an hour to the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. Dr. Mette was doing a flipper amputation on a loggerhead and I was able to see the removal of a badly damaged flipper. This poor turtle was hit by a boat propeller and got osteomyelitis--fancy word to say bone infection. These infections are very hard to clear up, especially if they are so wide spread as this poor turtles was.
After the big round of surgeries yesterday we got in to find that one turtle recovered so quickly that he decided to get out of his pool and walk around the class room all night! Very silly turtle.
Heather, a Gumbo Limbo Turtle Research staff member, and I medicated all turtles and then started to decide where everyone should go.
Today we focused on surgery to remove the fibropapillomas (paps) tumors making it difficult for many of the turtles to move. Right now we think that these paps are a direct result of pollution. The most likely cause is “urban runoff” or pollution like fertilizers, oil and gasoline from streets and lawns washing into our water ways.
I got to Gumbo Limbo early to prep turtles and set up for surgery. There are many obstacles today: first, there are so many turtles that the surgery site does not have enough room to house all these turtles after surgery. We will use classrooms as a post-op site. Second, the weather is chilly so we have to heat up large classrooms to 80 degrees. Because turtles are cold-blooded, it’s important to regulate the room temperature.
Ingredients: 6 garlic cloves, minced ½ teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil ¼ cup dry red wine or chicken stock 1 cup prepared tomato sauce or pasta sauce 1 tablespoon drained capers ¼ cup pitted black olives, chopped 2 pounds mussels, scrubbed, debearded ½ pound linguine, cooked and drained
