Starting this week Jules, our Discovery Programme and Volunteer Manager, will be reporting on what’s new at the Bait House Aquarium and how all our marine life is getting on.
Octopus Babies Hatching Out!
“Last Sunday we had a great day at the Bait House Aquarium. Lots of people came to check out the Aquarium and see some of our new arrivals. While they were there, the lucky ones were able to watch some of our baby octopus breaking out of their eggs!
About 100 babies were hatching and, as always, they were a very popular exhibit. Late Sunday night, almost all the rest of the eggs hatched and the tank is now absolutely full of thousands of baby octopuses! Hopefully we'll be able to keep some of them going until next Sunday.
As always with this happy event there is a sad side to the story. Once all the eggs hatch out, the mother octopus normally dies soon after. So, before this happened we decided to return our incredible mother octopus to the ocean Monday morning. She did a fantastic job bringing all those babies into the world, so it's with a fair bit of sadness that we said goodbye to her.
Yesterday, we were lucky enough to get a very exciting call from Eddie, one of our volunteers, who let us know that he had been given a huge load of different types of shrimps, crabs and puerulus (baby Crayfish larvae) after taking part in a NIWA collecting trip. What a fantastic collection Eddie. It must have been a pretty cool collecting trip. All the critters are now safely settled into their new homes in the Bait House Aquarium. There are even some animals I never knew existed! Come down this Sunday to see some of these special critters.
This week is National Volunteer Week. We want to recognise the efforts of every one of our fantastic volunteers that help out at the aquarium or in the thousands of other ways that contribute to making the Bait House Aquarium the best little aquarium in the world. We know it's that good because our visitors keep telling us it is. Check out our Facebook page and see what sorts of work they do. www.facebook.com/aquariumnz
That's it for this week”
Jules