New Exhibit Training Information Packet

Written by: Alice McCaleb January 2018

What is the Ring of Fire? The Ring of Fire is a string of volcanoes and sites of seismic activity, or earthquakes, around the edges of the Pacific Ocean. Roughly 90% of all earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire, and the ring is dotted with 75% of all active volcanoes on Earth.

The Ring of Fire isn’t quite a circular ring. It is shaped more like a 25,000 mile horseshoe. A string of 452 volcanoes stretches from the southern tip of South America, up along the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, down through Japan, and into New Zealand. Several active and dormant volcanoes in Antarctica, however, “close” the ring.

Ring of Fire Exhibit Facts: This exhibit is scheduled to open March 2018. The Octopus Den Interactives: - Touch seashells sculpted into the rockwork to demonstrate what an octopus midden looks like - A Giant Pacific Octopus replica hiding in small holes in the rock: ability to touch the octopus replica - 3D suckers that will be mounted along the edge of the rockwork to highlight octopus suction abilities - Disks that demonstrate the Giant Pacific Octopus camouflage ability: smooth skin, textured skin, and changing skin color

Exhibit Animals: Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) The Giant Pacific Octopus lives in chilly (60 degrees F or colder) Pacific waters from Korea and Japan north to Alaska and south to Southern California. They live in fairly shallow, coastal waters down to depths of around 330 feet.

Full-grown Giant Pacific Octopuses often top 50 pounds, and the record was a creature weighing 200 pounds and measuring nearly 20 feet across. Its eight arms are covered with suction cups (2,240 of them in females, about 100 fewer in males) which give the octopus an iron grip as well as exquisite powers of taste and smell.

Octopuses are mollusks—boneless invertebrates related to clams. It has a soft body, and its shell has been reduced to two small plates where its head muscles anchor, plus a powerful, parrot-like beak. Lacking a shell, octopuses protect themselves with one of the most sophisticated camouflage systems in the animal world.

Adult Giant Pacific Octopuses are stealthy hunters that eat a wide assortment of seafood, most commonly crabs, clams and other mussels. They catch their prey by surprise, using camouflage, jet propulsion and the sure grip that comes with having eight arms. With a quick bite from its hard beak, the octopus injects compounds that paralyze its prey and begins to digest its flesh. Then the octopus can return to its rocky den and settle down for a leisurely meal. Using a hard, rough tongue called a radula, the octopus scrapes a neat hole in its prey's shell and extracts the contents. After picking it clean, the octopus discards the shell into a rubbish pile, called a midden, just outside its den. Scientists study these piles to learn about octopus diets. Like other octopuses, the Giant Pacific Octopus is a master of disguise due to a complex system of pigment cells, muscle fibers and nerves. Millions of elastic cells under the skin contain colored pigments. By stretching these open or squeezing them shut from moment to moment, the octopus adjusts its skin color. It can flash a warning signal or melt into the background, using its sharp eyes to match the patterns and colors of its background nearly perfectly. Experiments have shown that octopuses are color-blind, making these feats that much more mystifying.

Octopuses have 3 hearts (2 brachial, 1 systemic); they have blue “blood” (technically not blood but hemolymph). The oxygen carrying protein in their blood is called hemocyanin because it is based on copper, compared to mammalian blood which uses hemoglobin (iron based).

Octopuses typically live alone, saving up energy for their one chance at mating near the end of their roughly three year lives. Then a female chooses a male, typically one much larger than herself, and together they head for a den in deeper water. A month or more after mating, the female lays 18,000 to 74,000 eggs hanging them from the roof of a deep water den in hundreds of strands of around 250 eggs each. The mother octopus lives in the cave for up to seven months as the curtain of eggs develops, fanning the eggs with her arms or contracting her body to shoot streams of oxygen and nutrient-rich water over them. She doesn't eat during this time and usually dies shortly after the young hatch.

Giant Japanese Spider Crabs (Macrocheira kaempferi) Giant Japanese Spider Crabs live in the Pacific Ocean near Japan, as deep as 500-1,000 feet or more. They like the vents and holes of the deeper ocean, which makes them harder for fishermen to find. They are considered a delicacy in Japan.

They are world’s largest known living arthropod and may live up to 100 years. It’s the legs that make this crab big. It’s body stops growing at about 15 inches, but the legs keep growing and growing and can eventually extend 12 feet from claw to claw. Overall, the crab can weigh up to 44 pounds. They can survive losing up to three walking legs, which sometimes grow back when they molt. They lose legs to marine predators and to fishing nets. As long as it keeps enough legs to get around, the crab’s armored exoskeleton helps protect it.

When it’s time to eat, the Giant Japanese Spider Crab isn’t picky: it eats plants and animals, including dead fish and shellfish. Some have been known to pry open mollusks for dinner. Apart from having eight legs, the Giant Japanese Spider Crab has two arms, each arm ending in a claw, just like in other crabs, with male crabs having larger claws than female crabs. Its mottled, bumpy carapace helps it blend into the ocean floor. Giant Japanese Spider Crabs also go one step further by decorating the tops of their carapace with sponges, anemones, and other animals.

Moon Jellies(Aurelia aurita) Moon Jellies are native to coastal waters around the world, mostly the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Like all true jellies, the Moon Jellies’ tentacles are covered with specialized stinging cells called cnidocytes.

Check out this diagram of how the stinging cells work.

The Moon Jellies uses these stinging cells to hunt small pelagic invertebrates and occasionally fishes. The cnidocytes are also the source of the sting that people feel when we come in contact with jellies.

It is most commonly found near the coast and in upwelling areas, where its prey occurs in higher concentrations. This species is not a very strong swimmer, so they are often found on beaches after strong storms or tides that push them onshore. Moon jellies are the favorite prey of some open ocean predators, like the ocean sunfish and the leatherback turtle. They have very little nutritional value, however, so the predators that specialize on them must eat hundreds and hundreds of these jellies in order to maintain their required energy levels.

Moon jellies have an interesting life cycle that includes a combination of sexual and asexual reproduction. Sexually mature moon jellies are the animals we see swimming around the open ocean (known as medusae), with which we are most familiar. The distinct horseshoe-shaped structures at the top of the medusa’s bell are the gonads. These adults reproduce via external fertilization, where females produce eggs and males release sperm into the water column. Once the egg is fertilized, a larva hatches and lives in the pelagic environment for some time. As it grows, the larva searches for a suitable place in shallow water and eventually attaches to the sea floor where it grows into an upside down medusa known as a polyp. During the polyp phase, an individual asexually buds off several clones of itself that swim away as medusae and eventually grow into sexually mature moon jellies. This alternation of sexual and asexual reproduction may be a means of quickly increasing numbers while preserving the importance of mixing genes with other individuals.

Morning Sun Star (Solaster dawsoni) The Morning Sun Star is found in the northern Pacific Ocean from Japan, China, and Siberia to the coasts of North America as far south as California.

The Morning Sun Star has a wide disc and 8 to 13 (usually 11 or 12) long, tapering arms, often with turned-up tips. The upper surface is smooth. They are usually red, orange, grey or brown in color. They can grow to a width of about 16 inches. The Morning Sun Star is a predator, feeding mostly on other sea stars. It is feared by other stars which move away as fast as they can if touched by a Morning Sun Star. The Morning Sun Star is also a cannibal, feeding on other individuals of its own species. It also feeds on sea cucumbers and diamondback nudibranchs.

Longspine Snipefish (Macroramphosis scolopax) The Longspine Snipefish can be found in temperate waters in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indo-Pacific Oceans.

Adults can reach a maximum length of about 20 cm (or about 7.8 inches). It has a long snout that makes up about ¼ of its body length. The mouth is at the tip of the snout. It has a second dorsal spine that is long and serrated. They feed on bottom invertebrates. Predators are a range of bony fish, rays and sharks. They are oviparous. The Snipefish is a member of the Sygnathid family so they are related to seahorses and sea dragons.

Plumose Anemone (Metridium senile) Plumose Anemones are common in the Pacific Ocean from southern Alaska to southern California.

Also known as the White-Plumed Anemone, these beautiful animals have tall, slender columns when extended. They have a broad oral disc covered with short, slender, tapering tentacles. These anemones may be shades of white, cream, tan, orange or brown. Plumose Anemones appear motionless, but expand and contract very slowly. These anemones often hide in protected places under ledges and in caves where there is little wave action. They will sweep the passing seawater with their tentacles to extract small zooplankton. When disturbed, the Plumose Anemone will fold in their tentacles and close in on themselves. They reproduce sexually by releasing sperm and eggs into the sea and also asexually through cloning where they break off small fragments of their foot which develop into new, tiny anemones, all the same color and genetically identical.

Giant Pink Sea Star (Pisaster brevispinus) The Giant Pink Sea Star can be found in the Pacific Ocean along the coast from California to Alaska.

It is one of the largest known species of sea stars. It can reach a diameter of 24 inches with five thick arms that can be up to 3 inches across. Their diet consists of sand dollars, mussels, clams and other bivalve mollusks. To reach buried bivalves, it can extend tube feet next to its mouth about an inch into the sediment to pull its prey to the surface. It also extends its stomach over prey to digest it. They can also be opportunistic scavengers feeding on dead fish and other animals. Like other sea stars, it can perform limb regeneration as long as the center disc is intact.

A Conservation Message

Help stop the invasion!

Trash in the oceans is bad, no matter the source. Keep your own trash from invading local waters. If you visit a beach and see some trash, carefully pick it up, throw it away or let others know about it. You can report large or dangerous debris to local authorities. Do your part to help stop the invasion of trash!