Last weekend my son, niece, mother and I visited a nature center dedicated to otters, martens, ermines, badgers and the like. It was fantastic. One of my favourite moments was – besides seeing an ermine couple hang out in their underground den, stretching and yawning – something completely unexpected.
It happened at the ‘fish otter stream’. The stream could be viewed from above, and of course there was also a tunnel next to it from which, through a pane of thick glass, you could see the otters swim. Predictably, everyone down there marvelled at the grace of the swimmers.
Suddenly, my eye was caught by something that stuck to the glass from the inside. At first, I thought it was poop of some sort – then it moved. “Wow, a leech!” I shouted out loud. People, their interest mildly piqued, looked over briefly – but their attention was not caught for long. The otter was gone, they moved on to the next attraction.
“There’s another, and another – one, two, three, four, five… there are lots! And there are amphipods too, look!” I called to my son and niece. In a second, all four of us, including my mother, were glued to the glass for an up-close inspection. “And there’s an isopod – and there are water mites – and look, this here is a turbellarian gliding across the glass.”
The excitement grew even more when one of the turbellarians seemed to attack one of the leeches. At first, I was sure the leech was the culprit and that it would suck the turbellarian dry… until it became clear – the turbellarian having its body firmly wrapped around the head-end of the leech, causing it to twist around in violent convulsions – that the turbellarian was the one having a snack. When it was done, the leech took a few seconds to come around and then swiftly moved away from the scene of its defeat, seemingly unharmed. Interesting to see how quick leeches can move when they want to, given that they mostly just sit tight, waiting for juicy prey with their butts firmly stuck to a surface and only their heads moving around.
Eventually, we took our noses off the glass – and only then noticed the sizeable spider that had been sitting in its elaborate, labyrinthine web quite close to our heads all this time.
We were there by ourselves in the semi-dark, but we felt that we had really seen something cool.
Just goes to show.
Poor, ignored spider.
Come to that, the otters probably felt a bit left out too.
The “small world” can be seriously cool!
Bob, on the spider – indeed. It seemed to be a bit shy, actually. The otters were doing fine, they had enough attention: they swam right off to the next feeding.
Anna – you can tell that I think so, too. The people hearing my excited screams definitely could…
The unnoticed microworld can be a thousand fold more exciting…. it’s amazing and absolutelly more fun!
It reminds me a little bit of the trips I used to do with my parents to the animal parks, where elephants and tigers were cool but everything else was also carefully examined… even small snails and beautiful spiders.
María José, the ‘unnoticed microworld’ is my absolute passion. From the very first time I learned about meiofauna, I was hooked!
Wow! that’s really cool… thanks for the link, I think I’ll spent some time looking around that site…
Um, is that thing cross-eyed, or is that a mouth or some kind of sucker?!
I had a similar experience at a nature reserve just outside of San Diego last month. My friends took me there to look at the ospreys, but we ended up entranced by the hundreds upon thousands of tiny fiddler crabs in the mud. Now they are some crazy wee beasties – we couldn’t work out what we were seeing at first!
Here’s an obligatory video of Vancouver Aquarium’s star (vertebrate) attractions. When this video hit the #1 spot on YouTube, it made the local news – which is some indication of the quality of our local media.
@Cath – quite by coincidence, I was wearing a Vancouver Aquarium T-shirt the other day. Isn’t that incredible?
Hmm, sounds a bit fishy to me.
Cath, they’re adorable!
I wonder whether a zoo/nature center featuring the ‘small stuff’ would work:
You could show some biotechnology in action, including beer brewing, producing Vitamin C etc., and simple microbiology experiments to get people involved. A set up demonstrating how bacteria produce gas (catch it in a balloon?). There would be aquarium tanks with meio- and macrofauna (worms, crustaceans, nematodes, harpacticoids,….. and foraminifera) from different habitats – shallow water and deep sea (ok, need a pressurized tank there, slightly technically challenging). Fixed to the tanks would be microscopes for close-up inspections. There would be regular feedings, of course, and people could observed the frenzy breaking out when different groups of animals try to gobble it all up before ‘the others’ get it. You’d also need tanks with freshwater and marine protozoa, and let people take their own samples to inspect under an inverted microscope. And let’s not forget the big tank with growing phytoplankton.
Anyone have some spare cash to set that up? Where would be a good location?
I love planaria. I think it’s their cross-eyed expressions.
I was more of a nematode person for a while, but I agree that flatworms are rather cute.
I am 100% in favour of Steffi’s nature centre idea. I think a large display about diatoms could also be incorporated, since they’re so weird looking and I know next to nothing about them.
Awesome idea, Steffi!
Diatoms are beautiful!
I am rather taken with the idea as well. I even thought up a name during my commute today: MicroWorld, and a slogan: Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
The exhibits would start with the ‘bigger’ multicellular organisms and then step down gradually in size, then to protozoa and finally to bacteria – drawing people down deeper and deeper into the world of the little beasties that surround us everywhere.
Surely someone must have thought of this before?
It’s a great idea! Will there be a petting zoo do you think? To teach us not to be so afraid of small slimy beings…
Sure – do you have a suggestion? Maybe a sea mouse:
..and look what a wonderful website I found in the process!
Ooo, I like that Sea Mouse too.
If they’re not too large, a section devoted to freshwater insect nymphs might go over well… Dragonfly Nymphs, Hellgrammites (Dobsonfly larvae) and the like. Weird, wonderful, and likely to scare you into never swimming in a lake again.
Sure – do you have a suggestion
Maybe the moss animal – it looks kind of cuddly!
Too small (unless you mean the whole colony, as in the picture above) – and they’ll just retract quickly into their shells when they’re touched.
I was thinking of the whole colony, but you are right – they would just go and hide in their shells and leave a wake of unhappy kids. Ah well, I’ll have to think again.