National Aquarium Field Trip Fun and Tips Part 3

See National Aquarium Field Trip Fun and Tips Part 2 here

One of the most interesting things about this trip was when we learned more about one of the kids favorite fish!

The kids spent a lot of time watching a specially little fish they called square. Square is a little peach fish with a bright pink square on this sides. It is a florescent pink even. While we saw other peach fish on the webcams for the aquarium we only ever saw one fish with the bright pink square. We spent a lot of time looking to see if we could catch two fish that looked like that on the camera but after days and days of hunting off and on we never did see two at the same time. We all had been almost certain that there was just one.

(Square on the national aquarium blacktip reef shark webcam)

  When we got to see the exhibit in person we at first thought that we had been correct, just one little peace fish with a square on each side but after further observation dear Daddy spotted a second, far from the first, but still there they where, two in the same tank. The Mr Handsome out 7 year old son spotted a third and possibly 4th.

This was a great science experience as it let us remind our children that limited perception can give false results. Had we just used the hours of webcam observation we would have continued to think that there was only one such fish in the aquarium.

That wasn’t the shocking thing though!

Square is actually a male squarespot anthias. To sum up the amazing thing about this fish simply put they are all born girls, with that peach orange color and as they get older they change into boys and develop that square pot! Born a girl and then turn into a boy…. This was a great chance for me to explain to the kids that in a human mothers womb all babies start out girls and then some of them turn into boys! They found this very interesting!

The reason we had not seen more than one on the camera at a time is because they seem to be territorial little things! The boys like their space!

We learned a lot from this trip as you can tell and our adventures in learning about the ocean. If you ever get a chance to visit this aquarium we highly recommend it! It will be a shame when we move away to not be able to visit as often as we do now. It is one of the best parts of Baltimore Maryland!