Biodiversity: The Cichlids

Today, May 22, is International Biodiversity Day. Of the more than 1,500 species that you can see at Shedd, about 900 are fishes, almost equally divided between freshwater and marine species.

Endangered Species Have Their Day

May 17 is Endangered Species Day. But we live among threatened and endangered plant and animal species every day. You might see them during a bird walk on the lakefront or on a hike through the Cook County forest preserves. You will see them swimming in Shedd’s exhibits and even growing in our gardens.

Celebrate Mexico's Aquatic Heritage at Shedd

It’s Cinco de Mayo, a major celebration in Chicago. At Shedd Aquarium, you’ll meet some of Mexico’s most intriguing freshwater animals, like the ghostly blind cave fish and those tadpoles for life, axolotls, in the Islands and Lakes gallery. The iguana habitat in this gallery features reef fishes you’d find if you were diving off Cozumel or Yucatan.

Blind Seadragon Gets a Helping Hand

When the Fishes department moved a leafy seadragon into the 4,700-gallon kelp forest habitat on the Abbott Oceanarium’s Coastal Walkway habitat, the aquarists watched closely to make sure that the more animated weedy seadragons didn’t slurp up all the live mysid shrimp before the leafy got his share. “That’s when we noticed that the leafy wasn’t eating on his own,” aquarist Erika Moss says.

What to do? Hand-feed the seadragon, of course.

Red Irish Lord

How this North Pacific fish got its common name is beyond us. It ranges from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula east through the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, down the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States to Monterey Bay, California. It’s separated from the Emerald Isle by the same land mass that kept Columbus from getting to India (but that’s another holiday and parade).

Great Lakes Natives: Largemouth Bass

To wrap up National Invasive Species Awareness Week, we celebrate one of our most common and well-known native fishes, the largemouth bass.

Does a largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, really have a large mouth?

Great Lakes Invasives: Asian Carp

Few invasive species have received as much attention in the Great Lakes region as Asian carp.

“Technically, Asian carp are not established in the Great Lakes as far as anyone knows, but the mere threat has caused a lot of concern,” says Dr. Philip Willink, Shedd’s senior research biologist.

Great Lakes Invasives: Sea Lampreys

Sea lampreys, Petromyzon marinus, were the Great Lakes’ first notorious invasive species. Originally from the Atlantic Ocean, they entered the Great Lakes through water diversions built for ships to bypass Niagara Falls. Able to survive in both fresh and salt water, these primitive fish may look like eels to the untrained eye, but they’re closer to vampires as they feed on the blood of host fishes.

Great Lakes Invasives: Zebra and Quagga Mussels

It’s National Invasive Species Awareness Week. Some of the most detrimental invasive species in the Great Lakes are small, attractively marked freshwater bivalves: zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) and quagga mussels (Dreissena rostriformis). They were unintentionally introduced in the mid-1980s by transoceanic cargo ships that drew them in with ballast water in Europe and, on arrival in the Great Lakes, flushed them as the boats restabilized with new freight. The rest is history.

Great Lakes Invasives: Round Gobies

Round gobies, Neogobius melanostomus, are one of the Great Lakes’ most prolific invasive species. At first glance, these small, tadpole-like fish with big eyes and pouting mouths don’t look like much of a threat. In fact, they are somewhat endearing as they wiggle-hop around the bottom of their Local Waters gallery habitat.

The problem comes when millions of these cute little fish spawn multiple times a year, outcompeting native fishes and preying on their eggs. Big problems for the Great Lakes came in a small, bug-eyed package.