10th July Group 4

Group 4

Alison Kwok 3T (17)

Nichole Cheung 3T (9)

Chelsea Wong 3S (32)

Sharon Ng 3A (25)

10th July, 2016 

Today we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We saw a variety of fishes, sharks and different sea animals. We also saw many land animals as well and we thought this aquarium had provided a great learning experience about sea and land animals for us. We first visited the sea animals, which were the main animals in the whole aquarium. Some of the more unique sea animals were the Day octopus and the common cuttlefish. The Day octopus spent the day stalking wild crab’s shrimps and fish, and hided itself by pretending to be coral, so that catching their prey would be much easier and simpler.

 Similarly, the common cuttlefish also hides itself with their zebra markings; the zebra markings on a common cuttlefish provide camouflage for them, creating a safer environment. They also had frilly fin ripples to help propel their body through water. Their frilly fins also helped it hover in shadows to search for their prey we also saw schools of small fish and huge tuna in the shark aquarium. We were all amazed by the scene in front of us. The tuna were all amazingly huge, unlike the ones we usually see. They were almost as big as the sharks! We also saw a couple of Hammerhead sharks, and we watched as it dived into the schools of tiny fish. We were all amazed by this sight as we have never seen tuna so big in Hong Kong. We then went to see the Mountain king snake. The mountain king snake had a very special red black and white pattern on their bodies. This acts as camouflage as well and to ward off predators. Predators steer clear due to their red and black markings which mimic the markings of a venomous coral snake. People and other predators often mistake the mountain king for a coral snake, which, contrary to the Mountain snake, is highly poisonous, and will not attempt to provoke the mountain king, providing a safe environment and a sort of camouflage for protection and safety.

We then visited the jellyfish tanks. We found all the jellyfish exquisite and graceful, but we all agreed that the lobed combed jellyfish was our favourite. We also learnt about the lobed combed jellyfish. The Comb jelly spread 2 broad lobes like a baseball glove as it drifted on currents. Its main purpose is to catch food. Their prey stick to the lobes and tiny fine hairs sweep the food to the comb jelly's waiting mouth. By learning about how the lobed combed jellyfish survived and caught prey, we were able to gain a unique learning experience ourselves.

There were also other interesting things in the aquarium. One of our favorites was the Kelp forest. At the Kelp forest, we were allowed to touch different corals and roots and even crabs with our bare hands! We found this experience really interesting and fun, as we were able to feel these creatures with our bare hands, gaining a hand on experience for us. We thought that this way of experiencing and learning was more interesting than just looking at the animals. We also went to take pictures at the Wave Crash tank and the coral tank. We saw different kinds of coral along the way, for example the red coral. We all found sea otters the cutest animals of all the sea animals. They lived in swaying undersea forests. Wrapped in ribbons of kelp, a sea otter floated on the surface on Monterey Bay, so they could be seen by humans very easily. We all thought that this was a great experience for us to learn and understand more about various sea animals and even land animals. We all enjoyed the trip overall as we gained a lot of knowledge and insight from these magnificent animals.

Reflection

We were very surprised when the tour guide first introduced the aquarium that contains the world's largest hammerhead shark and even had otters, and were all filled with passion throughout the whole time when we were visiting the museum. Though all of us had visited aquariums in different countries before, it was nothing like this one. We were all thrilled to see the different kinds of beautiful sea creatures and were all sad to leave at the end. We adored the jellyfish very much as they were like colourful plastic bags floating in the water made us interested in their body structure. We actually found out that most of their bodies were composed of water! The exhibit we like most was the 'Splash' as we were able to touch some of the creatures with our bare hands, including crabs and sea urchins. One of the crabs even grabbed onto the finger of one of us tightly and we had to gently pick it up in order to get loose. We all had a great time in the aquarium and enjoyed ourselves very much.

 Through this aquarium tour, we understood a lot more from the animal world, about catching prey and surviving by either camouflage by the mountain king snake or the unique way of hunting by the lobed combed jellyfish. Through the exhibition, we gained an insight about the world of the animals, learning about their natural habitats and their adaptation to the environment. We also learnt more about the importance of protecting the environment so as to save these precious animals and prevent them from going extinct. Throughout the tour, we understood more about the importance of conservation and animal protection through various animals, one of them being sea otters. Sea otters may seem a lot different from mankind, as they live in the sea and we live on land. However, they are also a vital part of nature that helps sustain the ecosystem and the food chains. The otter’s world may seem distant from us humans, yet our lives are intimately connected in various ways. From this exhibition, we started to understand more about the conservation of nature and the need to protect the environment.

We also learnt many ways to protect the sea environment, for example stopping overfishing and using other fishing tools than nets to catch fish. We learnt that sharks and other endangered species can easily get trapped in the fishing nets and they may die due to suffocation or would be slaughtered when they are found. We thought that this trip to the Monterey aquarium was a delightful and a very enriching experience overall. 

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