Undersea

Mother nature has been a little bit off weather. I woke up Monday morning hoping my day would be sunny. It was a friggin' winter wonderland! Hoping for the buses to stop running didn't exactly come true either. So, there was still school to go to. Pfft... Well, it was a pretty cold week. And I thought I could be walking around in shorts and t-shirt by this time of the year. Well, as Thursday sets for the dawn of Friday, I head out the door to Vancouver Aquarium. This time, I got some cool pictures from the Wetlab and also from the Birds of Prey show.

Nothing really special about this picture but... I took this picture because it reminded me of my brother for some reason. Can you see the 2 eyes? Almost comical looking...

This is a Puget Sound King Crab. Pretty cool don't you think? Well, I think so. It's so colourful. We might have made it a teensy bit annoyed by pulling it out of the water to get a few shots of it. I don't want to get this fella pissed anymore.

You're probably wondering what the hell is this shit? Well, to be specific, that is the mouth of a sea cucumber. The other end of the sea cucumber is the anus. The mouth has modified tube feet that form a ring of tentacles. And it's their tube feet that enable them to move around and stick to rocks.

The sea urchin... I like to think of it as the porcupine of the sea. Can you see it's tube feet? It's those lighter red string-looking things. It's the sea otters favourite food. There's a really cool and funny way that sea otters break them open. But I'll save that story for another day.

I just thought this seastar was pretty cute. Did you know that it only has one hole in the middle of its body on the underside. So, technically, that hole is the mouth as well as the anus. Pretty gross, I know... Its whole stomach comes out of its body and it digests its food outside of the body before going back in. Now THAT is pretty cool.

Some pretty looking anemonies. The stick to your fingers when you touch them. Question: are they plants or animals? PLANTS! Well, most people think so but they are of the animal kingdom. This fella too has one hole in the middle right there that serves as the mouth and anus.

More sea stars...

And more anemonies. I think this is a pretty picture. The colours are just... drawing. Like. It draws you to go closer and closer until you can't get any closer...






And on we go to the Birds of Prey. This is the Turkey Vulture. They're evil looking and disgusting maybe. But there is a reason they eat carcasses. They clean up after the dead... Oh and by the way, they poop and pee down their legs. It's because their excretes are acidic and it helps with killing off bacteria that's left behind on their feet (considering they walk around really dirty stuff)





Well, without a doubt, this was everybody's favourite bird. The Bald Eagle. I think I got a good shot of him. You think so? It was before take off. The weather wasn't all great but the birds were.






And that concludes my lesson for the day, kids! Hehe. I really want a DSLR right about NOW. My birthday isn't for 9 months. Start saving people!

Toodles!~