@portlandaquarium / portlandaquarium.tumblr.com
This colony of Cassiopeia Jellyfish, is also known as the "upside down Jellyfish"
Cassiopeia are often mistaken as Sea Anemone, though they can sting it is not very venomous or deadly, they also do not sting very often.
These particular type of Jellyfish are filter feeders. They extend their frilly tentacles up into the water column where they capture Planktonic food and absorb light that is used by photosynthetic algae that are housed in their tissue.
These Periwinkle Snails have a modified tongue called a radula that acts as an algae scraper.
Come check out our interactive programs during our Knowledge Days here at the Aquarium!
Every Clownfish is born as a male. Clownfish live under a strict hierarchy with the group ruled by a single dominant female in charge of producing offspring. When she dies, the head male undergoes a gender change and becomes the dominant female ruling the rest of the males once more.
Come visit our male Green Iguana, Westley, at the Portland Aquarium!
Sometimes sea stars rest directly on the viewing glass in our tanks. When they do, you get an excellent view of the undersides of their bodies, including their "tube feet." These tube feet provide many types of echinoderms (such as sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins) with locomotive capabilities. - Jill J.
New exhibit! Sea Nettles at the Portland Aquarium!
These guys can now be seen in our Jellyfish wall across from the Octopus in Gallery 2!
Most of the visitors don't get to see the Red Eyed Tree Frogs up and moving about because they are nocturnal hunters. They normally wake up when the lights go out.
The mouth of a Parrotfish is a sharp beak known as the "Pharyngeal Grille" which the parrotfish uses to scrape algae off the reef and crunch up coral. The beak is made up of hundreds of hexagonal cells that regenerate, growing out from the fish's gums. As the fringes of the beak break away, new cells push forward so the parrotfish always has plenty of beak for scraping and crunching its favorite foods.
Horseshoe crabs are considered living fossils that date back to 450 million years ago!
A giant pacific octopus has 280 suckers on each arm for a total of 2240 suckers.
Each sucker has the ability not only to hold on to whatever it touches, but also to taste. This ability is called Chemotaxis, and it allows the octopus to hunt and find food in complete darkness. When an octopus touches you one of the things it's doing is trying to figure out is whether or not you're a potential food item. The fleshy circular pad inside each sucker regenerates regularly, and old pads are sloughed off. These may be seen floating in the water in the octopus' exhibit from time to time.
Roxy is in love with puzzles and games. Every day at 12pm and 5pm staff members play with and feed her while other staff talk one on one with people watching the show she puts on for all to see.
We feed our Giant Pacific Octopus, Roxy, at 5:00PM every day. Sometimes Roxy's food arrives in her tank in a puzzle. She is so clever that she has already solved a variety of puzzles. In this video, Roxy is working out a solution for retrieving an especially tasty snack... a live crawdad! The puzzle in the video is a clear box that Roxy can enter in two ways. She can either lift the box, which is open at the bottom, or fit her flexible body through the long white tube that leads to the inside of the box. Though it may seem hard to believe, the only hard part in Roxy's body is a strong beak that she uses to eat. Since the tube chosen for the puzzle is bigger than her beak, she actually can squeeze through the tube! In this video, you can watch Roxy explore the puzzle. She put an arm in the tube a few times, but did not attempt to fit her body inside. About 30 minutes after this video was recorded, she lifted the box and was able to grab the crawdad!
Next time you visit the Portland Aquarium, try to arrive in time to see the octopus feeding. Roxy is an amazing, mesmerizing animal! - Jill J.
Please excuse the poor audio quality as I was competing with the roar of the Pacific Ocean, and the rather grainy video as my videographer is my 14 year old son (his equipment is limited by MY budget ;) Take note of the date mentioned for a massive beach clean-up, it took place just one week before our trip out. We also hauled away a large oil filled drum, but left it at the ranger station.
In the future, please consider a beach clean-up day as a valuable family outing. My family enjoyed the time spent together and felt rewarded by their participation, not only for the health of the beach but the assistance in creating an educational exhibit at the aquarium. Thanks for watching, and caring for our planet! -Rachel M.
*Not all of the still photographs were taken at Cape Disappointment. All of the ending photographs are just stock pics that I shared as a reminder of the harm that plastics are doing to us on a global scale.
One great reason to check out our Sleep with the Sharks events is the nocturnal tour. A trained Aquarist will lead a lights out tour of the exhibits featuring many nocturnal species, like the Red-eyed Tree Frog featured above. During the day these amphibians sleep suctioned to the bottom of leaves, in an effort to hide from predators.
Red Chocolate Chip Sea Star. Did you know that sea stars can "eviscerate" or disembowel their own stomachs to digest food outside of their body?!
