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Tag: cleaquarium

Make a Difference: 2019 Beach Clean-ups

April 26, 2019
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For more than 25 years, the Alliance for the Great Lakes has hosted Adopt-a-Beach events all over the Great Lakes to keep the shorelines healthy, safe and beautiful. In 2018 alone, more than 14,000 volunteers picked up 35,606 pounds of litter over the course of 900 cleanups.

The Splash Fund (a non-profit affiliate of the Greater Cleveland Aquarium) has hosted beach clean-ups in Cleveland since we opened seven years ago. This year, our beach cleanups are scheduled:

5/18 – 10am-12pm Perkins Beach (Edgewater) in partnership with Drink Local. Drink Tap.

6/15 – 10am-12pm Edgewater (main beach)

7/20 – 10am-12pm Edgewater (main beach)

8/17 – 10am-12pm Edgewater (main beach)

9/28 – 10am-12pm Perkins Beach (Edgewater) in partnership with Drink Local. Drink Tap.

The Cleveland Metroparks team does a terrific job of keeping big waste items off the beach, so what exactly gets picked up during these volunteer events? We mostly collect small plastic items including cigarette butts, water bottles, food containers, straws and cigar tips. Even though we are picking up primarily small pieces of plastic, we still remove around 100 pounds of garbage each of the mornings. We couldn’t do it without the help of hundreds of volunteers each summer. We show our gratitude for this effort by offering each volunteer one free post-event ticket to visit the Aquarium.

The easiest way to sign up for one of our beach clean-ups is to register here. It’s easy and fun and make a big difference. We hope to see you at the beach this summer!

Exploring Similarities, Celebrating Differences: Amphibians and Reptiles

April 10, 2019
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Once upon a time, reptiles and amphibians were classified together as one family. Scientists believe that reptiles evolved from their relative amphibians about 50 million years ago.Frilled Lizard

Today it still can be difficult to identify all of the differences between reptiles and amphibians. They definitely have traits they share. For example, they are both ectothermic, or cold-blooded animals, meaning their body temperature relies on the temperature of their habitat. Reptiles and amphibians also are both vertebrate animals, meaning they have backbones. Reptiles and amphibians also both have excellent eyesight that helps them hunt prey.

Reptiles and amphibians use many common defense mechanisms. Some species of both reptiles and amphibians have the ability to change the color of their skin in order to camouflage in their habitat. Another major defense tactic used by reptiles and amphibians is what scientists call mimicry. Copycat species, some reptiles and amphibians, mimic the bright colors of venomous or poisonous species to ward off predators.

While they clearly have a lot in common, there are some major differences.

All reptiles breathe through their lungs. Turtles are reptiles and some turtles have the additional ability to absorb and dispel gas when underwater during their brumation, or hibernation state. Reptiles also typically have dry, scaly and water-tight skin that offers protection. Reptiles with softer skin are usually equipped with another defense – like the hard shell of a turtle or the spines of a lizard. Reptiles do not live solely in water but normally need to live close to a constant water source.

In addition to breathing through lungs, amphibians can breathe through gills, or through their smooth, moist skin. This is what scientists call cutaneous respiration and amphibians are some of the only animals on the planet that have this ability! This allows for amphibians to live in water for extended periods of time. Some amphibians begin their lives in water and then move to land. Frogs are amphibians that start as tadpoles, completely submerged in water and breathing through their gills, and then move to land as adults once their lungs are fully developed.

While reptiles and amphibians share similarities they have distinct points of differentiation that make them unique. Scientists estimate there are about 8,000 species of reptiles and around 6,000 species of amphibians, and we will continue to learn more about what sets them apart as we continue to study these species.

– Elise

Coral Reefs Need Our Help!

March 20, 2019
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One of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, coral reefs are in serious peril. Coral reefs take up about 1% of the ocean floor but are home to 25% of all ocean species including more than 4,000 species of fish.

What is a coral reef?

Coral reefs are colonies of individual animals called polyps. The polyps have tentacles to feed on plankton at night and they play host zooxanthellae—symbiotic algae that live within the coral’s tissues and gives them color. The algae need carbon dioxide and waste products from the coral for photosynthesis. In turn, through photosynthesis the algae nourish the coral with oxygen and organic compounds. The coral uses these compounds to synthesize calcium carbonate (limestone) with which it constructs its skeleton.  This skeleton contains bands, like tree rings, that record environmental changes in temperature, water chemistry and water clarity.

Why should we care about coral reefs?

Coral reefs are also known as the speed bumps of the ocean. These structures act as a natural barrier, helping to slow down and shrink waves hurtling toward the shoreline and thereby protecting coastlines and the 200 million people living along the coasts from hurricanes.

We receive many other benefits from coral reefs. Stationary animals, coral are constantly evolving chemical defenses as protection from predators.  Scientists are developing new medicines from the coral-produced compounds to help treat cancer, arthritis, bacterial infections, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, viruses and many others.

Coral reefs also provide us with food and construction materials. They also contribute heavily to the economy via tourism.

Why are coral reefs endangered?

Believe it or not coral reefs can get stressed out! There are a variety of different factors that contribute to the stress of coral reefs. For example, rising temperatures globally causes coral bleaching. Also, additional carbon dioxide oceans absorb every day contributes to increased acidification which reduces the water’s ability to carry the calcium carbonate that corals need to build skeletons.

Additionally, overfishing is changing the coral reefs ecosystem with anchors and nets destroying the natural habitat.  And when sediment and other pollutants settle on coral reefs it can speed the growth of damaging algae and lower overall water quality. With lower water quality the sunlight may not be strong enough to reach the zooxanthellae to go into photosynthesis.

How can we help?

Scientist are working to find some solutions, but all of us can join the effort to help coral reefs by reducing our carbon footprints. Try recycling or using more reusable products. Join the skip-the-straw movement reducing single-use plastic waste. Only eat fish sourced sustainably. Or, donate to organizations and support companies committed to cleaning up our oceans.

-Crystal

Baby Shark! Shark Reproduction Continued

March 11, 2019
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Shark reproduction is pretty strange to begin with. But for sand tiger sharks, it is even weirder.

Sand tigers are the largest sharks you’ll see at the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. Their mating behavior is pretty ferocious.

We don’t know what prompts female sand tigers to be ready to mate. They must be mature enough in age—somewhere in their teens—and the females must also be ready to mate, which happens about every two years. We are not sure how (or if) females select mates. Scientists are still studying this!

When sand tigers mate, the much smaller males must bite and forcibly flip over the much larger and thicker-skinned females.

But before the sharks get to that point, there is a period of courtship behavior—sort of like shark dating.

Males might follow a female, swimming behind and slightly below her in the water. Then he might escalate to tailing, during which he very closely follows her. The next step is nosing. The male will follow the female very closely, with his nose, or rostrum, very close to her cloaca. (The cloaca is a shark’s reproductive canal and its way to poop. Both males and females have a cloaca.) Then the male will nudge the female, then bite her fins or body—all the while hoping to bite her and flip her over to mate.

If the male is successful, he will bite the female on the pectoral (arm-position) fin and try to flip her over. She then will become catatonic and will allow mating.

But, if the female is not interested at any point, she may bite the male right back! And remember, the females are much larger and thicker-skinned than the males. Female sand tigers can also circle close to the bottom to prevent males from approaching her to bite.

If the female is interested in mating, she may point her nose downward and allow the male a better chance to bite her.

Then the male sand tiger can hold the female’s cloaca with his clasper. Claspers are two finger-like appendages that all male sharks, skates, and rays have behind their pelvic fins. The male can then deliver his sperm, cloaca to cloaca before swimming away.

The female can store the male’s sperm for an unknown amount of time—perhaps a year, perhaps more—until it seems a good time to carry pups.

Now things get even stranger.

The female sand tiger has two uteruses. So sand tigers can carry two totally separate pregnancies.

Since sand tigers are ovoviviparous, they lay eggs internally and then give live birth. But for sand tigers, life starts under difficult circumstances. Around 20 eggs may be fertilized in each uterus. Then the eggs develop into shark embryos. The embryos grow bigger and consume all the nutrition in their individual eggs.

Then the biggest, strongest sand tiger pup in each uterus eats all of its siblings. Intrauterine cannibalism! That is what scientists call it.

The surviving sand tiger pup eats whatever new eggs keep arriving in the uterus until it is ready to be born.

After eight or nine months’ gestation, the pup is born. It will be more than three feet long and totally independent immediately.

Scientists are still learning about sand tiger shark reproduction. At the Greater Cleveland Aquarium we have seen mating behavior, but no pups yet.

– Nora Morrison

Baby Shark! Shark Reproduction

March 7, 2019
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In the Shark Gallery seatube, we often hear guests singing “Baby Shark” and sometimes we are asked how baby sharks are born. The answer to that is really fascinating.

There are around 500 species of sharks that we know of, and sharks are extremely varied in their size, body shape and how they reproduce.

All baby sharks begin when a male shark and a female shark mate. How sharks find each other, how they select mates and why they decide to mate is still something scientists are investigating.  The male normally bites the female to hold onto her and flip her over, and then uses his fingerlike appendage, called clasper, to deliver sperm.  Since female sharks are generally bigger than male sharks, this can be difficult for males.

The female shark can store the male’s sperm until the time is right to fertilize the eggs–sometimes even waiting for years! Then things get even stranger.

Baby sharks, which are known as pups, can be born in three quite different ways.

First, some sharks lay eggs. We call this oviparous. The “mommy shark” lays an egg case in a good spot and swims away. The egg case, which is sometimes called a “mermaid’s purse,” can be perfectly camouflaged to blend in with the sea floor or algae. The egg includes all of the nutrition the pup will need to grow from a fertilized embryo to a fully functioning shark pup. When the pup is ready, it emerges from the egg case and is totally independent.

Second, some sharks grow from eggs–but inside the mother shark’s body. This is called ovoviviparous. In this type of reproduction, there is no placenta to link the “mommy shark” and the “baby shark.” The shark pup gets all of its nutrition from its own egg yolk, other egg yolks, or (yikes!) from eating its fellow fertilized eggs or other pups. Ovoviviparous sharks give live birth to a fully independent pup. This is how sand tiger sharks, like the ones you can see at the Greater Cleveland Aquarium, reproduce.

And third, some sharks do have a placenta and directly support the shark embryo until it is ready to be born as a pup. This is called viviparous, and is also how humans are born. When the shark pup has matured enough, it is born and swims away. This is how sandbar sharks, which you can also see at the Aquarium, have pups.

All sharks are born ready to fend for themselves! As soon as they’re born, shark pups are ready to swim, hunt and grow.

-Nora Morrison

Species Highlight: The Argentine Tegu

February 26, 2019
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Commonly known as the giant tegu, the Argentine black-and-white tegu is the largest species of tegu lizard. We are going to take a closer look at one of the Greater Cleveland Aquarium’s newest residents and learn about its habitat, diet and even a unique characteristic with aquarist Brenton Maille.

Adaptability is Key

Did you know the Argentine tegu can survive in a range of habitats? From rainforest to scrubland, these tegus utilize the habitats available to them. Because tegus are very adaptable, they have resisted deforestation, which is a very common threat to species in the rainforest. “Tegus utilize different habitats and different areas of those habitats as well,” says Maille.

Many people know of this tegu species because it’s considered an invasive species in Florida, meaning it is not native to that area. According to Brenton, it is believed that the Argentine black-and-white tegu may have become invasive to Florida due to the pet trade. While the tegu is tiny and pretty adorable when young, they can eventually reach lengths of up to 4 feet which can be more than some pet owners are ready to handle. “Once a tegu started to get too large for a home environment people would release them into the wild, making them invasive species,” Maille says.

Maintaining a Balanced Diet

So what does a tegu eat? “In the wild, their diet changes throughout their life,” Maille says. When born, they are predators, eating mostly birds’ eggs and small insects. Once tegus get older and grow they switch to mostly omnivorous lifestyles, although they may still occasionally catch small rodents. They are generally good hunters and scavengers in the wild.

The Aquarium’s animal care staff works hard to make the diet balanced and reflect similarities of the wild. According to Maille, the Aquarium tegu receives “eggs, fish, rats and a mix of apples, bananas, pears and greens.”

Competitive Edge

Most people know that cold-blooded animals rely on outside temperatures to determine their body temperature. While the tegu is an ectotherm, it has the rare ability to raise its own body temperature by about five degrees in certain circumstance. While this is interesting and unique, there must be a reason . . . right? That reason is for breeding season. “Males compete better and females can produce and lay eggs faster,” Maille says.

Nature. It’s a curious thing. Learn more about the Argentine black and white tegu and other reptiles on your next visit to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium.

– Tori Pishkula

Cuyahoga River Reborn

February 19, 2019
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The Cuyahoga River famously caught fire on June 22, 1969, inspiring several songs and sullying Cleveland’s reputation for generations. But do you know the real history of our beloved river?

The Cuyahoga River officially begins about 35 miles east of Cleveland and continues its 85-mile journey south to Akron, where it turns sharply north and flows through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Lake Erie. The depth of the river ranges from 3 to 6 ft. except at the last 6 miles, where it is dredged to a depth of 27 feet.

Originally the river bed’s last bend took the mouth westward along the lakeshore to W. 54th St., until the present mouth was dug in 1827 to form Whiskey Island and a more direct channel which leads straight into Lake Erie.

The Cuyahoga actually caught on fire 13 times. The first fire occurred in 1868, just after the Civil War. The largest fire occurred in 1952, causing more than $1 million damage and the deadliest fire was in 1912, killing five men.

The Cuyahoga is not the only river that caught fire in US history. Rivers in Washington, D.C., Omaha, Buffalo, Dearborn and Philadelphia all caught fire as well.

By 1968, the reach from Akron to Cleveland was devoid of fish. Mayor Carl Stokes began advocating to clean up the river. Cleveland voters approved a $100 million bond issue to finance river cleanup efforts, including sewer system improvements, debris removal and stormwater overflow controls.

On June 22, 1969, just before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon, the river burned for the last time. The event was not considered “big news” and in fact there are no photos of the actual fire since news media did not make it there fast enough. However, on August 1, 1969, that small fire on the Cuyahoga river captured the attention of Time magazine, which described it as the river that “oozes rather than flows” and in which a person “does not drown but decays”.

Inspired by the 1969 river fire, the Time article and other initiatives, Congress passed the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA) which was signed into law on January 1, 1970.  This act helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). One of the first legislations that the EPA put-forth was the Clean Water Act (1972), which mandated that all rivers throughout the United States be hygienic enough to safely allow mass amounts of swimmers and fish within the water by 1983.

The river’s water quality finally began to improve during the following decades, and by the 1980s business investors capitalized on this by converting parts of the Flats’ abandoned industrial landscape into an entertainment district featuring restaurants, nightclubs, and music venues.

Recent water tests have found the cleanest river readings in the past 20 years and it is now home to about 60 different species of fish. The river continues to serve as the center of an active maritime industry, a growing recreational attraction, the link that connects the cities of Cleveland and Akron, the home of a national park, and the hub of Cleveland’s urban revitalization.

It took us about 100 years of fires on the river to finally take action, but once we did, the river reached an acceptable water quality level in less than 50 years. There’s still work to be done, but going from 0 species of fish to 60 species of fish represents great progress. And in the future, our hope is that the burning river will only refer to a really great beer.

If you have a group that would like to learn more about a #riverreborn, please contact us to have a speaker make a presentation!

 

 

5 Things I Learned: Red Terror Cichlid

February 13, 2019
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This colorful, eye-catching fish is a red terror cichlid (Cichlasoma festae). It can grow to lengths of 12 – 20 inches and live somewhere between 12 – 20 years. But what else do we know about it?

The red terror cichlid in the Aquarium’s Tropical Forest Gallery is hard to miss. Stop by and see this and many other very different but equally intriguing cichlids at the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. Nature. It’s a curious thing.

– Sam Fryberger

5 Things I Learned: Spotted Turtle

December 17, 2018
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The  Greater Cleveland Aquarium is a partner in SPOTD, a cross-organization collaboration to boost the number of spotted turtles in Northeast Ohio. Learn more about these attractive little turtles here:

 

Nature. It’s a curious thing. To see a spotted turtle and learn about the Splash Fund, Wild4Ever Foundation and Terrestrial Brewing Company‘s “I Love It When I Save the Turtle Porter, visit the Greater Cleveland Aquarium’s Ohio Lakes & Rivers Gallery.

– Sam Fryberger