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!