Photo Friday - Aquarium

Hello friends, Happy Friday to you. I hope you have had a great week! I hope you might checkout my previous post for my Mixed Media Monday art journal page!

Today I have some photos to share from a trip I took to the local aquarium. The Solitary Islands Aquarium. It's not huge, but not small either. Probably a dozen tanks, but there's still so much to see and lots of helpful knowledgeable staff that gave us lots of information, and even an hands on experience!

We got to touch a starfish, a sea urchin and a sea cucumber:

Sorry this one's a little blurry - The starfish was harder and more 'rocky' feeling than I thought it would be, while the sea urchin was as expected, spikey! The sea cucumber was soft and velvety!

One of my favourite things that we saw was a small snowflake eel;

I don't know what it is another these guys, but I just find them so cool. Maybe it's because they look like they just told a funny joke and are awaiting the response?


Another awesome thing we saw was a Marine Hermit Crab, different from the semi-land dwelling hermit crabs you might be used to, these type stay in the ocean, and amongst anemones.

This guy was enamoured with its reflection on the side of the tank, and one of the guides was telling us about how he places his favourite piece of round anemone on his shell, as part of its camouflage! When it changes shells, it will take off the anemone from this shell, and stick it onto it's new shell! Just like us moving home I guess.


 Yet another amazing creature was this beautiful Octopus:

He put on quite a show for us a few times - so I got video of him:



In one of the tanks there was a particularly beautiful starfish:

I just love the purple/blue with the deep red!

A funny thing was, each time we went to that particular tank this starfish would be in a different spot -  but we never actually saw it move! I kept waiting trying to witness it 'move' around! But it never did while I was watching! lol!

Here's a pic I got of it's underside when it moved to the front of the tank:

I love the detail on this shot.


Of course there were clownfish and anemones:

and some other fish, starfish and urchins - this urchin was called a lamington urchin, like the coconut covered choc-dipped cake!

You see the resemblance, right?

Kinda.

We saw so much, but I don't want to bombard you, these are just the highlights for me, so I hope you enjoyed seeing them. Here's one last pic of some of the coral and pretty anemones in one of the tanks:

Thanks for stopping by!