September 8 at The Discovery Center

Summer is coming to an end! So sad to think about as it was a fantastic summer both at our Sea Life Discovery Center and aboard our whale watching trips. Today the beach was so empty. Our neighbors were open selling bagels, our friends at Lee's Seafood were also open tending to the last beach goers of the season. I had not been in the center for while so I was shocked to see the size

of our lobsters! he has really grown, our crabs are doing well and were quite hungry today during feeding time. I must say my number one is educating people and meeting new people but aside from that I love feeding time. Erin and I were talking about how you get attached to each

of our "critters" We are closing for the season on Wednesday September 15Th, so come by and see us. Thank you to all who have visited and given us such encouraging words about our mission, we really appreciated it. Our biggest thanks goes out to the Capolupo family who have given us the space the past 2 years and who also purchased our amazing tank that everyone enjoyed so much! THANK YOU

Our last week!

If you haven't made it to the touch tank this summer, or if you've been meaning to come back a second, third, tenth or twentieth time, this is your last chance! It's our last week of open hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11 to 4, and Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 4.

As Bailey mentioned on Sunday, we have urchins, hermit crabs, and a pregnant Asian shore crab. Many of our favorites - our lobster, Lucky, our two flounder, Winnie the Pooh and Mikey, and our favorite crab, Big Mama — have been with us for the whole summer. Some of them may stay with us over the winter, to visit schools and libraries for our touch tank programs; others will be released back into the ocean very soon. So make sure to make it to the dock to bid your friends farewell!

Yesterday at the touch tank we found that one of our Asian shore crabs is with eggs! We also got some new additions to the tank including a longwristed hermet crab, 2 good sized urchins, a green crab, and some more beloved perriwinkles.:)
also thanks to Taylor you can get a chance to actually taste seaweed! And it's delicious!
So stop by today to check the new guys out, taste some seaweed and to pick a name for our sea anemone.
Hope to see you there!

Rainy Wednesday

It's rainy today (Wednesday), so the touch tank will be open by appointment only. Please call or visit the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company and ask one of the staff members to contact Scott - he will come open the tank and show you all our critters! The Steamship Company's phone number is (603) 431-5500. Thanks everyone!

Some new friends!

Today at the touch tank we found some new additions for the tank off the dock! We found a pretty good sized sea anemone, a new Asian shore crab and a scale worm. We also found that in addition to the first baby sea star, there is actually a second one! This little guy is even smaller than the first. Sea stars lay about 2 million eggs at once, but only a few of those eggs make it to adulthood.
We are still in need of names for the nudibranchs, so come on down! You have till 4pm tomorrow :)

Lately at the Portsmouth Touch Tank

We have had a great couple days! A lot of new names for the Nudibranch and we are suppose to have beautiful weather all weekend!! We also discovered the tiniest sea star in our tank so you will have to come check it out! It is maybe a centimeter big! Remember today and tomorrow (Sunday 22nd) we are open from 10am - 4pm so you will have to come by and see the little baby sea star and enter a name for the Nudibranch drawing on Sunday.

Nudibranch Week!

This week the creature feature at the Portsmouth touch tank are Nudibranchs. Nudibranchs are found at all depths in salt water however they reach their largest size in warm shallow water. Nudibranchs are commonly referred to as "sea slugs" and have simple body structures which lack a mantle cavity and are bilaterally symmetrical.

At the tank we have arts and crafts and a naming contest geared towards our Nudibranchs so come by and check it out!

A busy day at the Discovery Center

Our summer intern Erin and I were kept very busy today with all sorts of friends coming in to visit! Story time was fun and Erin was very busy with arts and crafts. We had our biggest Hermit crab change into a larger shell over the weekend, he looks happy and healthy in his new home! One of our Frilled Sea Anemone's was open today giving our guests some nice looks. Sea Anemone's grow on lower level rocks, pilings, in crevices and in shaded tide pools. They do have stinging tentacles but are not harmful to humans. They continuously grow throughout there life and can live over a century! Come and see us for feeding on Wednesday's and Saturday's at 2:00. Thanks to all who came to visit today!!

Lobster Name!

Today was the conclusion of Lobster week at the Portsmouth touch tank and for our final day we picked the winning name for our very own female Lobster. The winning name was....Lucky! Submitted by Cameron and Hailey from Rushville, NY. Congrats and be sure to stop by our tank next week to suggest a name for our next feature creature.

It was a SUPER busy day at the touch tank! Between the conference people and all of you that just came to see our beautiful faces... oh and the touch tank haha :) we barely had a breath! But when we did have a breath we spent it looking up more info on our new additions to the tank, the nudibranchs. These guys are a type of sea slug that have little frills that come off their back that are used kind of as gills. We also found that they not only feed on stinger organisms like hydroids and anemone, but they can actually use their sting-y food to their own advantage by becoming sting-y as well!
Tomorrow we are drawing the name for our Lobster! So drum roll for our next post!

The tank is cold! But that means optimal conditions for all of our critters we have seen more activity with them lately and been fairly busy. Come stop by the tank this weekend anytime between 10am and 4pm to see our sea stars, flounder, periwinkles, dog whelks, hermit crabs, jonah and rock crabs, lobster which we still have to name and much more!!!

Welcome Back!

After our tank was fixed this morning and a quick trip to Salisbury to grab our creatures the Portsmouth touch tank was back in business. The Salisbury tank generously gave us one of their Green Sea Urchins. Come by the Portsmouth tank this week to do Lobster themed crafts and check out our new creature!

Sea Life Discovery Center News

Alot of activity at the center today. Dick and Katy Fralick came in to do a talk on the food web in the Gulf of Maine and also brought us a huge map of the worlds oceans to display at the center. Dick and Katy have been wonderful supporters of The Blue Ocean Society. For the past 3 years they have donated there time on The Atlantic Queen II in Rye helping us with our education, research and conservation efforts. They have also donated books to us, posters and the past 2 years have come to Salisbury to do lectures, all of us from The Blue Ocean Society thank them very much for there support and in us as an organization and our mission, we are happy to call them friends!! We also made whale origami's today, Erin was kept busy with all the folding and patience it takes to teach 2-5 year olds how to make them. Our friend Chuck Rosa from "Chuckys Fight" (www.chuckysfight.com) had given us some dog tag necklaces to teach kids to stay away from drugs, Chuck jumps into the ocean every day 365 days a year to spread awareness of the devastating effect of drugs, he and his family are an inspiration! In order to receive the necklace you need to sign a pledge you will stay away from drugs. Kyle Espinola, Joey Espinola, and their cousin Cody Christian took the pledge today and earned there dog tags! Great job boys!

We're back in business! Come visit us and name our lobster!

Technical difficulties...

Our Portsmouth touch tank is having trouble - the pump that brings the chilled, filtered water back up to the animals is broken. So we filled the tank with bags of ice to keep the water cool, and we sent some of our more sensitive animals - including our fish, sea stars and urchins - to our touch tank in Salisbury, Mass., for the night. We closed a bit early today, with the hopes that we could block out the sun and give the crabs, periwinkles and lobster a rest. The tank is scheduled to be serviced tomorrow morning, so hopefully the tank will be up and running again by 11 when we open!

I'd like to thank the volunteers on staff today, Paulette, Scott, Dan and Alyssia, who did everything they could to keep the animals healthy and inform visitors about the situation. And thanks so much to our visitors for understanding!

Check in tomorrow to find out where things stand. We'll also be posting updated information on our Facebook site - make sure to become a fan! The link to the site is on our menu on the right side of this page.

Hermit Crab Names!

We picked the two winning names for our Hermit Crabs and the winners are: Georgea submitted by Eryn from Shapleigh, ME and Corkscrew suggested by Jasmine from Westford, MA. Congratulations!

Yesterday when we went to the tank we noticed a crab molt. We let the molt dry on the dock in the sun all day but it was not only our visitors who seemed to be interested in it. A Seagull grabbed our molt, thinking it was a real crab and ate it!

Calling all Tidepoolers!

It was a busy day today at the touch tank! But one of the things we need your help with is getting some more critters! So if you're out tidepooling and find anything cool feel free to bring it by the tank:)

The two crabs that were mating have separated. No signs yet if the girl is with eggs but that will take some time!

The hermit crabs got some more name suggestions today and one in particular was pretty creative (a little girl named one hhhho-with four h's specifically) The names will be picked tomorrow so be sure to check in.

Love is in the Touch Tank

We still seem to believe that two of out Atlantic Rock crabs are mating!! This is a longer process than we had originally thought until we did a little bit of research on it.

Mating between hard shell males and soft shell female crabs:
As the time for mating approaches the male carries the female in a belly-to-belly embrace. This lasts for up to seven days! On the final day the female will struggle to escape when the male finally releases her. The female will then molt her shell as the male inserts/ releases his sperm. After the molting process is accomplished the male then once again carries the female around in the belly-to-belly position to protect her new vulnerable soft shell. The sperm are stored internally within the female until the eggs are extruded and fertilization takes place. Anywhere from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 eggs can be carried on the females abdomen until they hatch as larvae.

Here is what we will hope to see sometime in the tank before summer is over, a rock crab carrying her eggs:




Citation: Davis, Lynn M. Marine and Freshwater Products Handbook. Lancester, Pennsylvania: Techomic Publishing Company Inc., 2000. 173. Print.

Hermit out of its shell!

We had three very interesting sitings today at the Portsmouth touch tank:

1. One of our hermits ventured out of its periwinkle shell - and we're not sure why. It may have been stressed from so much interaction with our visitors (the hermit crab is the feature creature this week, after all). We put him into a holding tank with some empty shells with the hopes that he would find his way back to a shelter. We'll find out tomorrow!

2. Two of our rock crabs snuggled up to each other for most of the day. One is a boy, and one is a girl... we believe they were mating! At first we assumed it was a fight, and we separated the two of them. But they quickly found each other again, so while we're not entirely sure, it seemed as if they were in a lasting embrace. Maybe it's that season!

3. A nonmarine animal flew in for a visit: a praying mantis! The crew of the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company found it on the boat. It sat quietly in a boy's hand, cleaning its front legs and scoping us all out. It was quite a treat to see such a beautiful animal.

Hermit Crab Week!

This week the feature creature at our Portsmouth touch tank is the Hermit Crab. Hermit Crabs are interesting because instead of molting or growing new shells they will transfer their entire body into an empty shell. Come by the tank to name our two Hermit Crab or do our Hermit Crab craft!

Below is a youtube video of a Hermit Crab changing shells. Although the video is of a Hermit Crab that breaths air, unlike ours in the tank, the act of changing shells is the same. Enjoy!

Sea Urchin Name!

We the picked the winning name for our Green Sea Urchin today and the winner was....

The Spiky guy! Submitted by Abigail from New Hampshire!



Below is a picture of our Lightening Whelk sticking its tongue out, check it out!

Lastly, a pink Life is Good hat was left at the tank today. If this is yours we brought it to the Isles of Shoals office so come collect it!

Yesterday at the touch tank our lightning snail was on the move. He was wiggling around all day and even stuck out his tongue at us!
The two crabs that lost their legs are still rehabilitating in our crabby hospital (AKA our little tank within our tank) and are expected to make a full recovery after three mults.
Our creature feature of the week this week the sea urchin is MIA as of yesterday but it's so little it is probably hiding right under our noses. The Urchins unknown where-abouts will not keep him/her from being named though :D We are drawing the names today so be sure to check and see who's name was drawn tonight!

The Crabby Mystery

As mentioned before there has been some sketchy behavior in the tank. Someone has been stealing our Crab's legs!! Our first suspects were the hungry flounder but today we got photo evidence of a mummichog minnow with a hermit crabs leg in his mouth!! We have a rock crab with only two legs and our poor Europen Green Crab Petey is down to only a leg or two as well. Along with a couple hermit crabs there is a crab leg theif in the tank so we have to watch out for them. The Flounder and mummichogs are now under investifgation come by the tank to see our poor crabs and tell us who you think did it!

Also it is sea urchin week so our little urchin needs a name we are open Saturday and Sunday 10am-4pm. Hope to see you there!!

Someone's been stealing our crabs' legs!

It seems to be molting season, because today we found the molt, or shed-off shell, of our green crab Petey - the second molt this week. When we found the living, breathing Petey hiding under a rock, we discovered that, just like our rock crab that had molted a few days before, he had fallen victim to our resident leg thief!

As Samantha mentioned in yesterday's blog post, crabs are soft and vulnerable right after they molt - they need a few days to grow and harden up. So both Petey and the rock crab were attacked at their most vulnerable. We're not quite sure who's taking those legs, though we have an idea, based on something we witnessed today: a flounder creeping up on a hermit crab and snatching its leg as a snack! We crushed up a few blue mussels for Flappy, Mikey and Winnie the Pooh to eat, with the hopes of curbing their appetites and giving them reason to leave our poor crabs alone. Life is tough in the touch tank!

Speaking of snacks... the urchin craft continued to be a big hit today. After learning about the green sea urchin, our feature of the week, several visitors used marshmallows and pretzel sticks to create their own urchins - and then eat them! Here are a few of our friends piecing together the craft:


Come see the urchin for yourself - and help us solve the case of the crab leg crook! See you tomorrow!

Crab Molt

When we opened the Portsmouth touch tank the other day we noticed one of our Rock Crabs had molted. Crabs molt once they have out grown their current shells and need a bigger one. After this molting process happens a crabs shell is soft for about three days leaving it vulnerable to predators. Our Roch Crab apparently did not hide itself well enough because when we saw her on Wednesday her still soft body was missing six legs! Below is a picture of the molted crab, the lighter red shell is the molt and the dark color shell is the Crab, still leaving, only without six legs. Crabs, like Sea Stars, can regrow legs but it will not be back to its full length until after three molts.

Feeding Frenzy at the Discovery Center

The North Shore Consortium from Peabody Ma came to visit us today, they enjoyed several books read to them by our summer intern Ally. Morgan from Charlstown Ma came in again with her grandmother and did some arts and crafts. Feeding time was really fun! We watched as each crab would grab the yummy scallops donated by Lee's Seafood. Come by for feeding time Wednesday and Saturdays at 1:00, also story time on Wednedays at 11:00. Hope to see you soon!

It's urchin week!

This week, our Feature Creature at the Portsmouth tank is of the spiny variety - the green sea urchin! We have at least one little guy in our tank; another, more elusive urchin may be hiding in there too.

Urchins are related to sea stars, sand dollars and sea cucumbers. They have lots of small green spines on the outside of their test, or body - one visitor today called our urchin "the porcupine of the sea." Their tests are round and squat, and all those spines protect the insides, where urchins ingest their food and harbor their eggs.

The mouth of an urchin is located on its underside. From what you can see when you hold one, it looks like a small opening, similar to the mouth of the sea star. But from the inside, it looks strikingly different: there are five "teeth" that come together to munch on algae (particularly kelp). Here's what the teeth, all together called an Aristotle's lantern, look like from inside the urchin's test:


Urchins move around using tiny tube feet, just like seastars do. But whereas seastars' feet are found only on the undersides of their arms, urchins have tube feet all over their bodies - you can watch them all stick out if you hold an urchin under the water for a moment or two!

These funny little creatures are harvested quite frequently from the Gulf of Maine, often to be sold to Asian seafood markets. Found under the name "uni" in Japanese American restaurants, urchin roe and gonads are a delicacy in many Asian countries. There have been recent reports that the urchin population in the area is under threat of overfishing, so it may be best to avoid this on the menu - at least until populations increase again!

Come check out these fascinating animals, and give our one - or two - urchins a name. See you at the tank!

Camouflage Attempt #2

For the second day in a row we separated out a flounder and placed black and white patterns under him to see if he would change colors to match the patterns. Did it work?Well....it kinda worked. The beginnings of some black and white spots can be seen but unfortunately the flounder did not have time to fully adapt to its new surroundings.

In other news, we drew three names for our three flounders. The winning names were: Winnie the Pooh submitted by Natalie in Lebanon, NH, Flappy the Flounder suggested by Hanna from Kennebunkport, ME and Mike-y submitted by Liam in Strafford, NH.

Yesterday at the Touch Tank

Yesterday at the touch tank we tried to make one of our flounder change colors to the new backgrounds that were put in the tank yesterday. Flounder not only can camouflouge in the sand in rocks but even patterned surroundings like checker boards and spots! We put one of the flounder in to a smaller tank for a little bit with our patterned backgrounds and waited...and waited...and waited for the flounder to do its thing and become a living checkerboard, but the poor flounder wouldnt sit still long enough. He did produce some black and white but that's all he was willing to do for us.
You still have a chance to name these stubborn flounder so come on down today before 4pm and put your name suggestion in the box or just come visit us if you already have! :)

We have new backgrounds at the tank for the Flounder to camouflage to, found a cool new scale worm and figured out what the two unknown red fish were in the tank.. Cunner fish!! Come out this weekend between our hours 10am-4pm to check everything out!!
Also found our small sea urchin who has been hiding from us in the tank today!

We will also have a table set up at the Redhook Festival tomorrow from 2pm-7:30pm so feel free to stop by or find us if you have plans on going to the festival. We will have fun games and prizes, our Enviroscape presentation and so much more.

Hope to see you sometime this weekend!!

It was a beautiful but windy day today. Our Winter Flounder were very active and even showed off some of there camouflage skills. We hope to bring in some different colored backgrounds to the tank this weekend so we can see if the Flounder will change color to match the different backgrounds we have. We have some great pictures of the eye migration and camouflage traits of the flounder so come check it out!!

We are open tomorrow 11am-4pm and Sat-Sun 10am-4pm
Please come and sign our new guest book and you can be added to our mailing list to see what we are up to even during the winter months when the tank is not open.

New Craft!

This week's feature creature is the Flounder. We currently have three Winter Flounder in the Portsmouth Touch Tank who are quite active and fun to watch. In addition, we are making Flounders with googly eyes as our craft for the week. Come by the tank to personalize your Flounder as Jocelyn did today!

New critters join our tank

We have alot of homes for crabs theses days. This crab has found a nice cozy home in this empty moon snail shell. A new friend to our tank is the Rock gunnel, we actually have 2 of these fish. They reside all year round in hiding under rocks and sea weeds. They move like an eel when disturbed hence the name "rock eel" and are also called "butterfish" because they are hard to catch. They like to eat shellfish, shrimp, and worms. Like life in a tide pool your choices are to eat or get eaten. There predators are cod, pollock, and sea birds. Our summer intern Heather and Erin are educating a visitor who spent alot of time with us today!

It's flounder week!

Come check out some our three flatfish, learn some fun fish facts (like that one of a flounder's eyes moves to the other side of its body so both eyes can be on top) and give them all a name!

Winning Name!!

This was the final day in our naming contest for our Neptune Whelk, although there were several creative names the winner is....

LILY, submitted by Rosie from New Ipswich, New Hampshire! Congratulations!

Come by the tank next week to name our Flounder.

Today at the touch tank it was a scorcher! Good news is, two of our sea stars finally decided to show themselves:) They have been in the tank for some time but have stayed very well hidden until now.
It was relatively busy and we got some more name suggestions for our creature feature, the Neptune Whelk. If you still haven't had a chance to put your name in you still have until 4pm tomorrow so come on by! And while your down at the tank you can make a necklace:D Remember we"re drawing the name tomorrow so be sure to check the blog to see if your name was drawn!

Hungry,Hungry Flounder!

Today at the touch tank we fed the hungry flounder and minnows. What a lively bunch!If you've never seen a flounder eat, this video's just for you.

It was quite apparent that the fish were hungry when the flounder started to eat the sea lettuce and the minnows started to eat the periwinkles!
Hopefully that should hold them over 'till tomorrow when we'll be feeding everyone in the tank raw cod. Yum!
It's supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow so come on down, you never know what will happen in the tank!!!

Everyone made their own special sea necklace! Some sea stars, whelks and scallops.

Temple Israel - thank you for letting us be a part of your Pirate themed day!

Today was a great day at the tank!! We had a group of great girls from the Temple Israel come by for pirate day and a lot of interested visitors about the new critters! We made a lot of Whelk necklaces and even had some visitors from Paris, France!! We learned a lot, made crafts and some sea urchin snacks after holding one and learning all about them! We had some great names for our Whelk as well today so do not forget to stop by and enter your own name idea for our Neptune Whelk.
We will be open tomorrow from 11-4pm and Sat-Sun from 10-4pm
Hope to see you there!!

Whelk Week

In keeping with this weeks feature creature, the whelk, our craft is making whelk necklaces! Come by to trace, color, and add beads to make your very own personalized whelk necklace!

Come by the tank to see our four species of whelk and to name our Neptune Whelk!

Discovery Center July 13

Christian LaFlech from Glenville, NY came in to visit today with his mom and dad and his little brother, who could clearly saw "Nemo" We were able to show them a sea anemone similar to the one Nemo lives in! From the picture you can Christian holding a large Sperm whale tooth and the smaller tooth from an Orca whale. Both teeth are replicas of real teeth. It's difficult to find real teeth because when whales die there gums deteriorate very quickly and there teeth fall out and are likely at the bottom of the ocean. Alot of new critters in our tank come by and see us! Our first beach clean up is July 21 at 10 am meet us at the Discovery Center, we supply all you need! We also had the Granata family spend some time with us and then returned for feeding time, Jake, Nick , and Mia and there mom are from Marblehead, Massachusetts, thanks for visiting!

Fan photos!

Here are some of the people who joined us on Tuesday in checking out our new critters and trying out our new craft!

Sam checked out the crabs in the tank and had lots of great questions for us. He gave one of the first entries for our creature feature naming contest - this week, our Neptune whelk needs a name!

Alyssa and Audrey of Sanford came to the tank for the first time yesterday! Alyssa was fascinated by the periwinkles, and Audrey was very good at finding the crabs hiding in the seaweed.

Some fascinating new creatures

Here's a look at one of our three flounder. These little guys are flatfish - they swim with their bodies turned so that they scoot along the bottom on their sides. As young fish, flounder swim like other fish - straight up and down - but somewhere in the development process, they switch to sideswimmers. The coolest thing about it: When they make this switch, one of their eyes moves to the other side of their body!
You can see from the picture that this flounders eyes are on top. The eye that used to be on the bottom side moved when the fish was young. Now, this flounder can watch the world around it with two eyes on the top of its body!
Another interesting addition this week: an Asian shore crab. Yes, we've had this species in the tank for a while, but our newest friend is a male - and his claws are gigantic! Take a look at the difference between one of our resident females (sitting in someone's hand) and our new boy (sitting on the bottom of the tank). The new guy walks around dragging these big claws with him - he almost looks like they're weighing him down!