Cami and
Ben’s Trip to
the
12-27-04
We were really hungry, so the first place we went was to the Grow Café. They’re an ecologically-minded café that
grows all of their own food without pesticides or anything like that. On a related note, they’re also pretty dang expensive.
Around the walls of the Café they had the 26 facets of their mission statement, each beginning with a different letter of
the alphabet. Some of them were professional like, “Judicious Water Use” and “Labor Rights.” But when we come to M,
we find that it stands for “Mulch.” I must admit, I have not known many companies that have listed
“Mulch” as one of the governing tenants of their mission statement.
I though this display was rather humorous. For those of you who feel that you don’t have enough Argentine
ants at home, come to the California Academy of Sciences where you can see many more of them.
For those of you who are unable to see through dirt, and are taller than half an inch, the Academy has made several
plaster molds of ant hills, just so we can see what they look like. This particular and hill belonged to some fire ants.
This Australian Lung Fish can breathe both in and out of water. Lucky bum.
In addition to being able to breathe both in and out of water, this apple snail
can eat tough plants with its teeth. I honestly did not know that snails had teeth.
This shy fish is called a Cross-Dresser Cichlid. It is called this because it is the only type of Cichlid where the female is bright
and colorful instead of the male. As you can see, it’s hiding, and I was going to make a joke about how a cross-dressing
fish should not be
shy when it’s life style is acceptable in
This Sword-tail Newt is also called the Fire-bellied Newt.
If anyone can figure out why then please let me know.
According to the plaque, these Axolotls are neotenic, which means that they attain reproductive maturity while still
in their larval form. Actually, they never really “grow up” unless they are under extreme stress or are exposed to certain chemicals.
This guy is called a “Crayfish” because of his habit of swimming upside-down.
I guess that means that next time I do the backstroke I’ll be a crazy-man.
This was one of my favorite parts of the whole experience. Getting to see the “Touch Tidepool.” Here are some pictures of
Cami Touching things in the Tidepool. At one point I was trying to pick up a starfish and I realized that it was gripping the
wall as hard as it could. I asked the employee on duty if all these sea creatures really didn’t mind being touched and handled.
She assured me that they dislike it very much, and that if I were to go to a real-life beach and see all these sea-creatures, I should
refrain from running around and touching all of them.
These Anemones are pretty tough. Even though they look like little sea-plants, they are very territorial and have even been known
to act aggressively towards other anemones who are not part of their colonies. In other words, they can tell the difference between
a friendly anemone and an enemy. I think I just made up a new tongue twister.
Disappointingly, these Long-eared Sunfish don’t actually have long ears. Those ear-like things are really just elongated gill flaps.
Dang, huh?
This is a Giant Sea Bass. The largest one ever caught weighed over 550 pounds. Fishermen love them a lot and, well, because of
this they’re pretty endangered. In fact, if you catch one you’re obligated by law to throw it back. On the one hand this is a bummer
because now fishermen will have to settle for catching really tiny normal-sized bass, but on the other hand, at least now they can make
up more stories about the huge fish they caught and then claim they had to throw them back for legal reasons.
These two snakes, the Emerald Tree Boa and the Garden Tree Boa have really sensitive head sensors on their mouths which they
use for catching prey. The snake on the left has sensors so sensitive that it can detect a temperature change of only .4 degrees
Fahrenheit. The snake on the right has receptors that are so sensitive that it can strike and capture a bat in mid flight in total darkness.
This is the resident Electric Eel. I was surprised to find that it was quite a bit bigger than Flotsam and Jetsam, the evil eel henchmen in
The Little Mermaid. Like other members of the knifefish family, Electric Eels use electrolocation to find their way around the murky
waters the usually live in. Of course, unlike other members of the knifefish family, the electric charges of these eels is enough to stun both
predators and prey. [Warning: this next part is kind of cruel, just to let you know.] Whenever the staff of the Steinhart Aquarium has to
move this eel (for cleaning or whatever) they irritate it repeatedly until it discharges its electricity several times. Each shock is less powerful
until finally the poor eel can only let off a tingle, and the members of the staff can safely pick it up.
On the right is a
Green Swordtail and on the left is a Butterfly Goodeid. The Butterfly Goodeids
lived by themselves for many years in
the Green Swordtails were much better food collectors and the poor Butterfly Goodeids eventually became extinct in the wild. I thought it was
a bit cruel for the aquarium to put both of these species in the same tank, but that’s just me. It’s like, “Hey, sorry about wiping out your species.
Oh look, now we’re roommates!”
You may be wondering how the fish on the right can be a Green Swordtail since it isn’t green and its tail doesn’t really look like a sword. Yeah,
I was wondering that too. Well, it’s actually the “red variant” of the Green Swordtail, and only the males of the species actually have a pointy,
sword-like tail (and this one is a female). But if you look at Cami’s page that shows all our pets, you can see what a male sword-tail looks like.
I didn’t get a very good picture of this guy, but I think he was my favorite fish in the whole aquarium. He’s an Electric Catfish, and has a big enough
charge to knock out a fully-grown fisherman (400 volts!). Because of this, some African Tribes believe that this fish has magical properties. Man, if I
caught a fish that looked normal but then it knocked me out after just touching it, I’d wonder if it was magical too.
I never got a good picture of the Poison Dart Frogs, so I just decided to take four pretty-good pictures and put them together. Yes, it’s true
that they’re called Poison Dart Frogs because many tribes use their poison to tip their poison darts. The frogs themselves, ironically, only use
their poison to defend themselves, and not to attack other creatures.
I couldn’t help taking a picture of these signs. I know they’re meant to
warn you of real hazards, but they do look a bit comical nonetheless.
This is the least scary picture of the Snakeneck Turtle that I got. All the other ones made it look like it had evil glowing eyes. This turtle actually buries it’s entire body in the sand and then when fish pass by it shoots out it’s long neck to catch them. Unlike some other species of turtles, the Snakeneck unfortunately cannot draw its huge head and neck into its shell when it feels threatened.
Sure this looks like an ordinary, terribly obese frog, but it’s actually a “White’s Treefrog.” This miracle-frog secretes chemicals that can destroy the cold sores caused by the Herpes virus. It can also kill staff bacterium and is often used to help people that suffer from high-blood pressure.
Unfortunately, my photo is not able to show the sheer size of this “Cane Toad.” Also known as the Giant Toad, this predator produces enough poison to seriously harm a human, and kill most cats and dogs.
This Mexican Red Knee Tarantula eats mice, birds and lizards
in a way that is too gross to talk about here.
But if you are interested in the morbid details, feel free to visit the
This is my hand pressed against the palm of a gorilla (okay, so it’s just a model of a hand). I actually but the bottom of my hand against the bottom of the gorilla hand just so you could see how huge his paw is.
Okay, so Starfish are invertebrates, right? This model of the inside of a starfish makes it look like it’s got some kind of bones. Maybe it’s an invertebrate because it has bones, but no backbone. Or maybe those bone things just look like bones. I’m not sure, really.
In addition to being encased in class, this moon rock is also held tightly in a vice so that no one can steal such a valuable object. Moon rocks have always fascinated me because unlike most of the things that I see in my day-to-day life, this object isn’t actually from the planet Earth. I’ve always wanted to just touch something that wasn’t from the planet Earth.
And in this next photo I get my wish. This meteorite, which landed in 1891, is a big rock from outer space. Oooooooo. Okay, well I thought it was exciting. Anyway, when most meteorites fall these days, scientists are pretty quick to gather it up and not let anyone touch it. But since this one fell in 1891 (back in the days when scientists let you touch just about anything, including ancient mummies) they figured it had already been ruined, and they let people touch it.