I love going to aquariums and being immersed in fish and underwater wildlife. All of these incredible creatures in the depths of the oceans is so truly incredible and cool to me. So in short: I love going to aquariums.
Two weeks ago (the weekend before Hurricane Matthew hit) my boyfriend and I finally took a drive to the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. Right off the bat, there were pools of stingrays and other fish you could touch, but they were on their "No Touching Break" which I think is so great that they do. The animals deserve a break every 15 minutes or so when they're not bombarded with the hands of small children. We grabbed some food in the cafe and then hit the main walkway to see what all the buzz surrounding this aquarium was about.
Here are some of the things we saw in the first section:
Then, we walked through the Madagascar section and came across some very rambunctious lemurs. There were four of them when we first arrived, but three went off to eat and one remained having fun with the crowd of people surrounding his netted enclosure.
He made some funny faces and children and swung around, clearly having a lot of fun with the attention. His food attendant came by, yet he still ignored her and continued making faces at children; she had quite a struggle getting him to stop playing and eat.
Next, we went inside a darker part of the exhibit where creatures that lived much deeper in the ocean were kept. One of the coolest things I saw, but couldn't get a picture of, was an incredible octopus that was playing with two plastic toy balls. He was suctioning and un-suctioning the balls and then would shove his tentacles through the little holes in the balls. I tried to get a picture, but the tank was too dark and there were too many people pushing through to see him. I did get some awesome jellyfish pictures though!
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The next animal I had a blast seeing was the variety of sea horses they had. As a child, I was seriously obsessed with sea horses. Any project I had or paper I needed to write, was done on sea horses. The variety they had was awesome, and I think I got a few cool shots.
Aside from some very bratty children with parents who don't care about good parenting, we had a great time at the Florida Aquarium and ended our fun trip to Tampa with some delicious sushi 😉.
Let me know what good aquariums are near you, I want to visit them all!
~ Elyssa
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