Thoughtful Thursdays: Green DIY Halloween Decor

In the spirit of this upcoming weekend full of Hallowmarine fun, we’re sharing some of our team’s favorite eco-friendly, decoration ideas! Not only are these decorations a great way to use recyclable materials, they are also more cost-effective than buying traditional decorations AND the steps are simple, making this a great project for families to do together!

Floating Ghost

Materials:

• cheesecloth or old fabric cut into a 12″ x 12″ square
• an old tree ornament (preferably a clear globe)
• string
• a glow stick (optional)**
• a permanent marker

Directions:

1. Draw two large oval eyes on the ornament with permanent marker.

2. If using a glowstick, activate it and place it inside the ornament. We used a shorter, thicker glow stick like this one, but the thinner variety work as well!

3. Cover the lit ornament with your fabric, if you are using an old sheet, make sure it has a small hole cut in the center of the square to fasten the string to the ornament.

4. Attach string to the ornament’s top hook and hang your ghost! These make great outdoor ornaments for trees and look great on banisters or doorways.

**Stick your activated glow sticks in the freezer to keep them glowing longer! 

Box Mummies

Materials:

• a cracker or cereal box**
• old white fabric such as sheets or pillowcases
• googly eyes or eyes drawn onto scrap paper
• tape and/or hot glue

Directions:

1. Tear the fabric into strips approximately three inches wide

2. Wrap the strips around the box, securing with tape or tying them together (as seen above), until the entire box is completely covered!

3.  Attach the eyes to the top half of your box mummy!

**If you use an empty box, you’ll want to put something in the bottom as a weight so your mummies don’t tip over!

Milk Gallon Ghost

Materials:

• Plastic milk jugs (washed out)
• Scissors
• Permanent Marker
• A glowstick (optional)

Directions:

1. Make sure your gallon is washed out and completely dry

2. Cut off the top of the milk jug, making an approximate six inch hole

3. Draw a ghoulish face on the front facet of the milk jug, opposite sides of the handle

4. Activate the glow stick and drop it in!

Join us this weekend for more exciting crafting at our Hallowmarine events in DC and Baltimore!  

Watch Our Divers Carve Pumpkins Under Water!

We are really getting in the spirit of Halloween at the Aquarium!

To kick off our exciting weekend of Hallowmarine events at both our Baltimore and Washington, DC venues, the National Aquarium dive team carved pumpkins in our Atlantic Coral Reef exhibit. Not only is this a fun activity for our divers (they can get pretty competitive over who’s underwater carving is better), but the fish also really enjoy interacting with our divers while they carve!

Click here to watch today’s underwater pumpkin carving session! 

Not only is this a fun activity for our divers (they can get pretty competitive over who’s underwater carving is better), but the fish also really enjoy interacting with our divers while they carve!

This year, we gave our online community on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ the opportunity to watch a live stream of the underwater carving! If you missed it, you can watch the entire entire carving by clicking here!

Stay tuned this week for more exciting posts surrounding our second annual Hallowmarine! 

MARP Turtles Update: Halloween Enrichment

October has brought a frightful amount of excitement from our staff.

Enrichment, a crucial part of our Marine Animal Rescue Program’s (MARP) rehabilitation of sea turtles, is designed to further engage the animals’ natural behaviors of investigation, foraging and exercise!

Our staff took this opportunity to encourage some Halloween-inspired investigation with our two sea turtle patients. We added spooky window decals to the turtle pools and observed their behavior.

London, our Kemp’s ridley, was initially very curious about the new Jack-O-Lantern and frightening ghost placed on his window, but quickly turned his attention back to his delicious diet of soft-shell crab and shrimp.

Olympian investigated his ghostly crew for more than 20 minutes (with the occasional attempt to bite at them).

In addition to this spook-tacular enrichment update, stay tuned for some additional exciting details about Olympian in the next couple of weeks!

Happy Halloween from the National Aquarium!

At the National Aquarium, you can come face to face with thousands of different species of animals. Some of these animals are cute and furry, like Xeno the sloth. Some animals, such as the clown triggerfish, are vibrantly colored. Some are awe-inspiring, like the diverse species found in our Jellies Invasion exhibit. And some are downright spooky!

Check out this collection of photos and fun facts of some of the spookiest creatures at the National Aquarium:

California sheephead

California sheephead
The California sheephead, a wrasse native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, begins life as a female with pink coloration. When it grows to a length of about 18 inches, it transforms into a male. Their protruding canine teeth, which give them their menacing appearance, are adapted for prying hard-shelled animals from rocks. The California sheephead uses its powerful jaws and sharp teeth to crush the prey, and modified throat bones to grind the shells into small pieces. See this fish in the Kelp Forest exhibit at the National Aquarium, Baltimore.

Albino American alligator

Albino American alligator
Just in time for Halloween! The National Aquarium’s Washington, DC, venue unveiled an extremely rare albino American alligator this month in a temporary exhibit, Secrets of the Swamp. This 4-foot-long snow-white beauty is one of fewer than 100 albino alligators in the entire world, and she’s only here through February. Don’t miss your chance to catch a glimpse of this ghost of the swamp!

Generally, alligators with albinism cannot survive in the wild; their inability to blend in with their surroundings not only makes them unable to ambush prey, but also draws the unwanted attention of predators. Albinism is a genetic condition in which an animal lacks melanin, or coloration pigment, in the eyes and skin, resulting in this alligator’s unusual translucent scales and pink eyes.

Grey-headed flying fox

Grey-headed flying fox
The aptly-named flying fox looks very much like the canine creature for which it is named. The grey-headed flying fox, otherwise known as a fruit bat, makes its home in the tall trees of the tropical rain forests in northeastern Australia and the Southeast Asian islands.The grey-headed flying fox is the largest of the flying foxes, growing to up to one kilogram in weight, with a wingspan of up to one meter. They live in large colonies which can contain up to a million individuals, and the colony sizes keep increasing as the flying foxes’ habitat is destroyed, limiting roosting sites. The next time you visit the Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes exhibit at the National Aquarium, Baltimore, be sure to look up to the ceiling for a glimpse at a small colony of these amazing winged creatures.

Black ghost knifefish

Black ghost knifefish
This mysterious-looking tropical fish is known as the black ghost knifefish. It is a weakly electric fish that uses an electric organ and receptors distributed over the length of its body to locate insect larvae.

 

Grass shrimp

Grass shrimp
This unworldly-looking creature is a grass shrimp, common in estuarine waters along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Their bodies are nearly transparent, except for orange or yellow pigment in the eyestalks. Grass shrimp also have a well-developed rostrum (horn) with teeth along the edges, four spines on the telson (the pointed structure in the middle of the tail fan), and heads that are longer than the rest of the body.

Phyllobates terribilis, the golden poison frog

Phyllobates terribilis, the golden poison frog
Even though you won’t see one of these at the National Aquarium, how could we not include an animal with a name like Phyllobates terribilison this list? This tiny frog is found in the Amazonian rain forest along the Pacific coast of Colombia, and it certainly lives up to its name! Considered to be one of the most toxic animals on Earth, golden poison dart frogs have enough venom to kill 10 grown humans. Their bright yellow skin is saturated in an alkaloid poison that contains batrachotoxins, which prevent nerves from transmitting nerve impulses and ultimately result in muscle paralysis.

The bright-yellow frog on view in the Hidden Life exhibit at the National Aquarium, Baltimore is a Panamanian golden frog—which is actually a toad! This beautifully colored toad may not be lethal like P. terribilis, but seeing one is certainly a rare opportunity. This species is critically endangered. The Panamanian golden frog is under pressure from habitat destruction, illegal poaching (collection), and the Chytrid fungus. The Chytrid fungus is probably the leading cause of amphibian decline in the world.

The National Aquarium, Baltimore, is one of several organizations participating in Project Golden Frog, a conservation project involving scientific, educational and zoological institutions in the Republic of Panama and the United States that aims to understand this species through husbandry (breeding), research and education programs.

Something ghostly is lurking beneath DC…

Just in time for Halloween! The National Aquarium’s Washington, DC venue unveiled an extremely rare albino American alligator this month in a temporary exhibit, Secrets of the Swamp.

This 4-foot-long snow-white beauty is one of fewer than 100 albino alligators in the entire world. Generally, alligators with albinism cannot survive in the wild; their inability to blend in with their surroundings not only makes them unable to ambush prey, but also draws the unwanted attention of predators.

Albinism is a genetic condition in which an animal lacks melanin, or coloration pigment, in the eyes and skin, resulting in this alligator’s unusual translucent scales and pink eyes.

Animals with albinism are also very sensitive to sunlight, another factor contributing to their low survival rate—their skin burns easily and light impairs their eyesight. The Secrets of the Swamp exhibit is equipped with special low-UV lighting.

This gator is originally from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida and will be on display for an up-close and personal experience through February.

Join us in DC on Fridays at 2 p.m. for an alligator feeding and talk to learn more about this special creature. And if you come to the DC venue this Friday, October 28, or Saturday, October 29, dressed in your Halloween costume finest, you’ll receive $2 off the admission price!

This unique reptilian lady still needs a name! We took suggestions from our Facebook fans and Twitter followers and narrowed them down to five options. Vote for your favorite on Facebook, or by texting WHITE GATOR to 30644 from your mobile phone. Standard messaging and data rates may apply.