Blub Blub

Here's my "lazy" foliage tutorial! 🍀

(I say "lazy" in quotes as I consider this method a shortcut, but still requires some effort for the drawing to look nice)

Gif version of the process:

Thanks for reading!

Building a home for a toadlet

Check out how we train our mola to come to the surface of the Open Sea exhibit to chow down on some delicious food!

Fun fact: Inside a mola's tiny mouth are two pairs of hard teeth plates shaped with a slightly curved ridge, resembling a bird's beak. Here’s the twist: The mola doesn’t chew its food! 😳

This paper intended to test whether would mice would run on a wheel if they found one, to try and determine if this was a natural behavior or a stress response in captivity. They put a wheel in a protected little box with a camera that took pictures any time the wheel turned, and tallied up how often it was used by what.

Mice were, happily, the most common users of the wheel, and their patterns of use indicated they were doing so voluntarily once they figured it out.

But the second most common users.

Those were slugs.

Hermit crabs are temporary tenants of their mobile homes—just like we need new clothes as we grow, hermit crabs too must search for a new shell as they outgrow their old one. But shellecting their new digs can be tricky business—it can’t be too big or too small, too heavy or too damaged, and of course, it can’t be already occupied by another hermit crab, or worse, its original gastropod designer! 

After a quick inspection, move-in is a snap. (After all, a naked hermit crab is a hermit crab snack to potential predators…) They’ll line their shells up, wiggle out of the old, and settle into the new in seconds, leaving the old shell behind for the next hermit crab looking for an upgrade.  

If you’re looking for these couture crustaceans along the shore, remember to practice tidepool etiquette—no shellfish behavior allowed! Please leave those empty shells undisturbed for potential hermit homes. 🌊🐚

❄️🔮A snow globe jelly sea-renade 🪼💙

In twilight's hush, a jelly gleams, Delicate beauty in silent dreams. Jewel-like gut, a red disguise, Camouflaged where darkness lies.

In the deep sea's vast expanse, A drifter floats in a subtle dance. Where red light falters, can't dare to breach, No danger near, as shadows teach.

PDJSDM2301 - Female

Pattern notes: Really cool pattern on her, nice dark saddles and lots of contrast

Join us LIVE on Twitch and YouTube this Thursday (12/14) at 3 p.m. PT, where we'll be navigating the underwater world of Monterey Bay, making waves, and striving to be the ultimate Monopoly tycoons! 🌊💸

Join us on a journey from wee fry to terrific titans and learn how our aquarists train our giant sea bass 🐟💪😍

absolutely flattened