Hungry much?

Largemouth Bass eating Emerald Shiner

Up until now all the action in the water gallery has been in the freshwater tank. I know the exhibit designers, builders and animal care specialists might not agree with me – they’ve been furiously planning behind the scenes! But, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve only had one aquarium (albeit HUGE) to fawn over.
 
So, you can imagine that a person can grow fond of these little swimmers. Well, this morning, upon visiting my buddies, I discovered that one of the largemouth bass had swallowed an Emerald Shiner WHOLE. What a pig!  I mean, the meal was barely smaller than the consumer!
 
And so, not possessing a gullet large enough to swallow such large prey, and not having the common sense to spit it back out…the bass just swam around for the rest of the day with a  big tail sticking out of it’s mouth. Seriously bad table manners!
 
After hours spent like this I started to worry for pig-fish’s safety. I mean, how long can one survive with a decaying fish stuck in the throat? And will that rotting corpse in the bass’ mouth cause devastation to the rest of the fish living in the aquarium? But my concern has been assuaged--because Stacey (CMN Exhibition Technician extraordinaire) assures me that this is quite common. Pig fish  the bass will swim around, allowing the shiner to decompose,  for as long as it takes. And everyone will be fine.  Well, not the Emerald Shiner…he is a goner.

 

The Education Department helps out with The Water Project

The new permanent Water gallery is just one part of a larger water project at the museum.  The Education department is participating by developing new programming and collaborating with teachers across the country to create new learning resources.   “Water in our Lives” is the name of a new school program developed for the grade 2 level that will be offered starting in September. In this program, students learn about water in all its different forms on earth, the water cycle, what people use water for and how much of it we use everyday.  There is also a fun experiment on the surface tension of water that is sure to leave an impression on the students!  First they will have to guess how many drops of water they think can fit on top of a penny before the water starts to spill over the edges, and then they actually get to do it to see how close their guesses were.  (Spoiler alert:  up to 30 drops of water will fit on top of a penny!)  Many of the activities will be done in a take-home booklet, so the kids have a souvenir and are able to keep learning at home.
 
The Education department has also been developing some great teacher resources for grades 9-12.  This is an online project that will be available shortly on the museum website (nature.ca) that includes lesson plans and flash animation that has never been used anywhere else before!  One of the animation videos is based on a paper written by a scientist at the museum, and shows the invasion of Zebra Mussels in the Rideau River over the course of seven years.  It shows how Zebra Mussels will attach to anything (even passing boats, locks, plants!) and eventually take over the river.  Another flash animation video shows the formation of Arctic Ice, from the beginning where it’s nothing but calm water all the way to its final form.  The development of this project was a collaboration between the Education and Research departments as well as the 3D lab, and promises to be very useful to teachers!