Education Update Background: Big Trop.

Individual Information: Bowmouth (Rhina ancylostoma)

The AOP is one of three aquariums in the United States to have a bowmouth guitarfish; the Newport Aquarium and the Georgia Aquarium are the other two locations that care for this type of animal. Our particular guitarfish is a 2 to 3 year old male that was bought from a professional collector in Taiwan. He is regularly fed 0.4kg of , mahi-mahi, and . This animal loves giant spider the best!

Rhina ancylostoma picture (Rhanc_u0.jpg) by CSIRO

Basic Bowmouth Guitarfish Information: • Distribution: Indo-West Pacific (Red Sea and East Africa to Papua New Guinea, north to Japan, south to New South Wales, Australia) • : Coastal areas and inshore on the . They live mostly on sand and mud bottoms, but are sometimes found in the water column. • Diet: They feed mainly on bottom and mollusks. • Reproduction: Ovoviviparous • Physical Description: It has a broad and rounded snout, large and high pectoral fins, and heavy ridges of spiky thorns over their eyes, backs, and shoulders. It also has jaws crushing teeth in undulating rows. It appears grey or brown in coloration on the dorsal side and white in coloration on the ventral side. It has numerous white spots dorsally on fins, body, and tail with black spots on head and shoulders. • Red List Status: Vulnerable • People Usage: In some countries, the pectoral fins of these are used for their fresh and salt- dried meat. These animals often damage the other animals caught in the trawls and can be difficult to handle.

Individual Animal Information: Live Sharksucker ( naucrates) • The live sharksucker has been with the Aquarium since the beginning. We received it when it was a juvenile and our aquarists estimate that it is probably 10 years old. Husbandry staff estimate that this animal weighs 15 to 18 pounds; it has grown to this size from being fed clams, squid, and sardines by our staff of aquarists. We cannot determine the sex of the sharksucker, because this type of does not display sexually dimorphic characteristics. When the sharksucker was younger, smaller, and lighter it attached to the that swam in tropical. Now it is too heavy to hang on to a , so it hangs on to the acrylic. • Now what’s the difference between a and a sharksucker? While the sharksucker and the remora are both in the same family (Echeneidae), the live sharksucker has ventral fins that are attached to the belly for less than 1/3 the length of the animal’s body. In contrast, the remora has fins attached to the belly for more than half of the length of their bodies.

Basic Live Sharksucker Information: • Distribution: Circumtropical waters in the Western Atlantic: Nova Scotia, Canada and Bermuda to Uruguay. • Habitat: Found in shallow in-shore areas and around coral reefs. • Diet: It eats squid, clam, sardines, other small fish, bits of its host's prey, and pieces of its host's parasites. • Maximum Length: 110 cm or about 3 feet 7 inches. • Red List Status: Not on the Red List • Interesting Fact: Attaches temporarily to a variety of hosts including sharks, rays, large bony fish, sea turtles, , dolphins and ships.

Exhibit Fun Facts • This exhibit is the largest in the Aquarium. Approximately 2,000 fish (about 200 ) swim in a 350,000 gallon exhibit that is kept at 78 degrees farenheight. The exhibit is modeled after a specific dive location called Blue Corner on the island chain of Palau.

• The easiest animal to interact with in this exhibit is the southern stingray. These animals are very friendly and aggressive.

• The biggest challenge for taking care of the Big Trop. exhibit is making sure that all of the smaller animals (yellow tangs and surgeonfish) are well fed.

• Different fish are fed in various ways at this exhibit.

o For instance, the schooling (trevallys and crimson snappers) are fed out of a bucket by divers. o Divers feed smaller fish near where they live with tubifex worms; they use plastic bottles to squeeze this food into cracks and crevices. These smaller fish are fed near where they live, so they don’t need to venture out and become vulnerable to predators. o However, animals that are herbivores are fed romaine lettuce and herbivore gel, which closely approximates the algae and plant material they would find in the wild. o While the Queensland groupers and the Napoleon wrasse are fed larger pieces of food (like clam, squid, whole crab) away from the more aggressive schooling animals. o Southern stingrays are conditioned to feed against the window so guests can see them eat.

• The Story of Barbara the Blacktip Reef Shark. While we usually don’t name our animals, Barbara is a special case. In the 2003-2004 academic year, some local children saw her for sale in a pet store and felt she didn’t have enough room to swim. At the Aquarium they learned that black tip reef sharks must swim to breathe and worried about the health of this beloved shark. These children contacted us to ask if we would accept her as a donation. They knew that our tanks were a lot bigger than any that had ever seen in the pet store and believed that they would provide ample space for her to swim in. Since this was such a special request that showed exceptional concern on the part of these young boys, we agreed. They raised over $600 dollars to give this shark a good home!

Barbara is no longer the smallest female blacktip reef shark in Big Trop, because we have now added two new females that are smaller in size. However, she has flourished here at the Aquarium and is estimated to be 5 to 7 years old.