Stork stops by Sea Cliffs exhibit

The National Aquarium is happy to welcome “Squirt”, the newest addition to the puffin colony in the Sea Cliffs exhibit.  Hatching sometime last night after a 34 day incubation period, this is the second successful hatching for our orange banded female and black banded male. Puffins form a pair bond and typically return to the same nest ground year after year. This pair’s first chick hatched in 2006, and was the first puffin born at the Aquarium!

Squirt weighs just 37 grams right now but should grow to be about 32 cm, or 12 inches, tall. He will remain in the nest box which is located on the far left side of the exhibit for several weeks and will be fed by both parent birds there.

Healing Houdini, the bearded dragon

There’s no such thing as a “typical day” for the Aquarium’s veterinary staff. With dolphins that can weigh up to 500 pounds to frogs that weigh as much as a paper clip, our vets face different challenges every day. Some procedures require special skills, which is when the Aquarium turns to outside experts.

Last week, the Aquarium medical team faced a special challenge: “Houdini” is a four year old bearded dragon that is part of our animal programs team. If you’ve been at the Aquarium for one of our daily Animal Encounters in the Overlook, you may have met her!

In April, Houdini became very ill with fluid building up in her body and under her skin. Through weeks of intensive medical management, vets were able to get her back to normal behavior and appetite, but still weren’t able to determine the underlying cause. The diagnostic options were an exploratory surgery or endoscopy – both invasive- or advanced imaging of the soft tissues using a non-invasive MRI. An MRI would let vets look at Houdini’s ovaries, liver, kidneys and other organs without requiring surgery – the best option.

Wear Blue, Tell Two

World Oceans Day is Monday, June 8th. The  National Aquarium will be celebrating this weekend with a fun, family festival  designed to teach people that ocean health begins at home.  Can’t make it to the Aquarium this weekend? You can still help by wearing blue on Monday to show your ocean pride, and telling people two things they may not know about the oceans and two ways they can take action to improve and safeguard the health of our oceans.

Need some ideas for what to tell people? Click here for a list of simple things you can do to keep our planet healthy.

Wear Blue and Tell Two was inspired by results from America, the Ocean, and Climate Change: New Research Insights for Conservation, Awareness, and Action, the largest-ever environmental study. A collaborative effort between The Ocean Project, the National Aquarium, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, the study points to the pressing need to accelerate knowledge and commitment to ocean health.

Jellies make for interesting art

Jack Cover, the Aquarium’s general curator of fishes and rainforest exhibits, refers to jellies as living  lava lamps. Many exhibits around the country show jellies as living art.  Visitors see them as majestic and mesmerizing. When visiting our new Jellies Invasion exhibit, one local reporter referred to them as being “other-wordly.”

There seems be a new form of jellies artwork…a 600 ft crop circle in a jelly pattern that recently appeared in a barley field in UK! It’s gaining a lot of media and tourist attention as one of the most intriguing crop circles ever seen in Britain. Click here to read more about this amazing form of art.

Have you seen any cool jellies artwork?