On Thursday, November
22nd, our biology class took a fascinating trip to the Vancouver Aquarium.
The purpose of the trip was to learn about the different species of organisms
that roam the oceans and get a hands-on experience with these creatures. Also
it was to observe the ways of some of the animals and get a closer look in
their contribution to the environment. After a long bus ride, I arrived at the
aquarium and my first task was to participate in the wet lab where you get to hold
and touch different animals of the ocean.
In
our first session out of the four stations, I started out with the phylum
Mollusca. Members of this phylum are known as mollusks. They have been evolving
in the sea for more than 600 million years and today there are more than 100,000
mollusk species in the world. Mollusks live everywhere – from deep ocean waters
to mountains. One of the most common mollusks we can easily identify is the
snail. Some of the mollusks I looked and held were clams, oysters, and chitons which
are marine mollusks with a shell made of number of layers of plates. When these
shells decay, they reveal beautiful patterns of colors in the inside and this
can be used to make jewellery. Many mollusks like oysters are used to make jewellery
and other decorations. Moving on to the next section I observe the cnidarians
which include sea anemones and jellyfish. This is where I got to feel the
texture of a sea anemone which is sticky especially the tentacles themselves. On
the tentacles there are tiny barbed spears that are filled with poison and are injected
into the pray. The toxins are extremely fatal depending on which species and
can cause paralysis and even death. Fortunately, human skin is too thick for
the sea anemone to penetrate so it cannot harm us. Also if the sea anemone
recognizes the skin cells of a different organism as its own it won’t attack
like in the case of the clown fish. The clown fish and the sea anemone have a
symbiotic relationship which both benefit from in terms of food and protection.
The
next two stations included crabs, starfish and even sea cucumbers. The starfish
out of them all was the most interesting because it represented itself with
radial symmetry. Every part of its body was a mirror image of the other. Also
the starfish when taken out of the water, releases its feeders out of its body because
it is losing water due to evaporation. Unfortunately I couldn’t get to
experience sponges in action but all the rest of the organisms were so
intriguing that it kept me wondering about how such tiny creatures form one of
the most vital marine ecosystems on earth. Below I have included some pictures I took on
my trip.
 |
| Jellyfish are my favorite invertebrate and they can repair any tissue damage through regeneration. |
 |
| There are two beluga whales in the aquarium ( Delphinapterus leucas) |
 |
| Moon jellies |
 |
| Pot bellied seahorses use their strong prehensile tails and oscillating dorsal fins to maneuver. ( Google Images) |
 |
| Starry flounder camouflages well |
 |
| The color of the crocodile is dark, emerald green, This helps it camouflage with its surrounding habitat like in the swamp or murky areas. |
 |
| At 4.5 m, the arapaima is the largest fish in the Amazon |
 |
| This shark has approximately... no bones! Sharks have skeletons made up of cartilage which is also the material that makes up your outer ear. |
 |
Dermochelys coriacea, ( sea turtle) in the tropic zone
|
 |
| Giant red sea urchin has very long spikes for protection from predators |
 |
| Adult Steller sea lions eat a wide variety of fishes, including Pacific
herring, pollock, salmon, cod, and rockfishes. They also eat octopus and
some squids |
 |
| Octopuses use their eight sucker-lined arms to capture their prey and move about on the ocean floor. ( Google Images) |
 |
| Archerfish locate their food near the surface of water and literally shoot water from their mouths at its pray to make it fall into the water |
 |
| The symbiotic relationship between the clown fish and the sea anemone is that the clown fish wards off predators of the anemone and in return the fish gets food. |
 |
| Otters spend a lot of time cleaning their coats becausethey need to maintain the insulating air layer between the water and their skin. . During the 1700s and 1800s, sea otters were hunted to extinction along
the B.C. coast. The current B.C. sea otters are descendants of 89
Alaskan sea otters that were relocated to the west coast of Vancouver
Island from 1969-72. |
