Flippin’ Your Fins

My final day on land, before returning home to Boston, was spent walking about water. The last day In Portugal I visited the Lisbon Oceanarium. It’s no secret I love nature, but what you may not know is that although I am in the Commerce School and studying marketing, I used to be an Environmental Science major planning to concentrate in marine and terrestrial ecology. Unfortunately with the amount of labs I would need to complete, pairing the with the Comm School just wasn’t in the cards, but my love for ecosystems hasn’t changed (in fact, my favorite ecosystem is a Mangrove Forest.)

An Oceanarium is a collection of not just fish, but all marine species, including birds, mammals, fish, and other marine organisms. The main exhibit is a large tank in the middle of the Oceanarium with everything from starfish, to manta rays, to sharks, and even the largest bony fish, the Sunfish. Around the large tank in the middle are 4 different habitats: the North Atlantic rocky coast with puffins, and strange sharks in the water (in fact one jumped up at the glass and nearly took off my fingers that I careless left too close to the edge.) The Antarctic Coastline with penguins. The Temperate Pacific kelp forests with sea otters. And the Tropical Indian Coral Reefs with more colorful fish than the rainbow probably holds.

The best exhibit by far was the sea otter habitat. I decided that if I could be one animal, I would be a sea otter. They are incredibly cute, swimming about without a care in the world and even wave as if they enjoy the attention of spectators. Two of the sea otters, named Eusebio and Amalia, were clearly happy to see visitors as they did summersults and showed off how deep they could dive.

Since these creatures were my favorite that I saw, I can’t resis sharing some interesting facts about sea otters! Sea otters have an abnormally thick coat of fur, which is actually the densest in the animal kingdom. It has water resistant hairs that help regulate it’s body temperature and keep warmth trapped close to the body. It can dive fairly deep, because it usually forages for food on the sea floor, preying mostly on sea urchins, mollusks and crustaceans. Sea otters are incredible swimmers, partly because they can close their nostrils and ears, preventing any water from irritating them as they use their strong hind legs to propel them through the water. They can even swim at night because the long whiskers on their face act as feelers in the dark waters. Despite being great swimmers, sea otters send most of their time floating and flipping about on the surface, grooming themselves. As they do this, they tend to stick together in “rafts” 10-100 sea otters. To keep from floating out to sea, they wrap themselves up in sea kelp, or hold paws while sleeping. They are social animals, so I imagine we would get along quite nicely. Unfortunately, when I get back I don’t think there is room enough in my house at UVA to keep one as a pet.