The kids have been asking to go to the aquarium all week, so we headed over there today after lunch. It was a great time to go with very few people and a new exhibit that has been under construction all year is now open! The kids really enjoyed our afternoon there.
The new exhibit on the ground floor is the Atlantic Tunnel. The kids loved walking through this big tunnel and seeing the fish and especially the sting rays swimming all around them. After walking through the tunnel, you can see into the tank from various other viewpoints, even on the stairs leading to the next level.
Also new today is an area showing the jaws and bones from various kinds of sharks! The kids especially liked the saw fish bones.
The girls love to pet the Koi fish. Oliver politely declined and spent more time in the Atlantic Tunnel.
The next floor has lots of snakes and lizards. We liked seeing these lizards “hugging” and Marion loved this poisonous green snake that slithered back and forth by the glass. Elora spent a lot of time drawing the pythons and today Oliver actually stayed in the room with the poisonous snakes instead of retreating to the stairs! There are some new snakes – the San Francisco Gartner snakes – which are endangered and really pretty. I couldn’t get a good picture because they were also very active and slithering around a lot. The kids really liked those snakes a lot, although Elora says the pythons are her favorite.
There are lots of fun tunnels and bubbles to crawl into at the aquarium. While in the tunnel today the kids saw lots of turtles swimming around them. Marion also loves the area with the Doctor Fish that nibble on your hands. They wouldn’t nibble her hands when Elora had her hands in the water, but when Elora pulled her hand out Marion was so excited to have some fish nibble on her fingers.
One area was under construction so we had to walk a different way in the aquarium and ended up spending a lot of time in the salt water tank section. There were a lot of really beautiful fish. We especially liked the hermit crabs, stone fish, and the splendid garden eels that look like little worms poking out of the sand. Marion sat drawing pictures of a lot of animals today, but she especially liked the little eels.
We went into the Tropic House for a little while because there is an iguana there that Marion really likes. The kids drew pictures of all the beautiful birds, the little monkey who tried to jump on Marion’s backpack, and Marion and Oliver drew pictures of their favorite iguana friend. It was time to leave before we saw everything, but Marion stopped to give a kiss to the giant Japanese Spider Crab. By then the aquarium was getting crowded. We got lucky with the timing, we will have to come again right after lunch when there are no crowds!
