Waking up otter, part II

Our little Anang loves her sleep. This is her in her on exhibit cave (with a view from behind the scenes for their keeper only). She always has to stretch and yawn before she eats lunch. Here is a great short clip of her yawning.

The Rise of the Dunkleosteus

I'm guessing most people wouldn't relish a face-to-face encounter with a massive predator fish.  But, the staff at Great Lakes Aquarium couldn't wait.

Today was the big day of the Dunkleosteus.

Our fossil skull cast arrived this morning on a semi-trailer in this 7 foot tall box.

Getting a box this size is a bit of a logistical puzzle. 
But we did it.
And Jay, our operations manager, got to work prying it open.

The Dunkleosteus skull will serve as the centerpiece of our new Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life exhibit.  They grew to a size of 30 to 50 feet long. 
To put that into perspective, imagine a fish the size of a school bus...with this face.

 

The prehistoric predator roamed the waters that are now the Great Lakes around 350 million years ago.  He'll be ready for his first visitors tomorrow.

I put together a short video of our big fella's journey to get to his space in the Origins gallery.  It was a team effort.

 

Fire, Ice is on the way!

This is big, big, big! 
After a year of planning, months of work, and many weeks of construction we are ready to unveil our new exhibit, Fire, Ice and The Rise of Life.
In fact, we're on schedule for our soft open Memorial Day weekend (i.e. in 2 days).

This is how the exhibit space on the second floor of Great Lakes Aquarium looks right now.

A lot of plywood walls and temporary doors concealing the magic that's being created behind them.

Underneath the exhibit floors, in our animal holding area, many treasures await their big reveal.  We've received so many packages, most in sloshy boxes, that it feels like Christmas around here.

Among them are these South American lungfish.

As the name suggests these fellas have lungs and can breathe air, which, if you know anything about fish, is like, "what??"

Then there are these guys who I just can't get enough of.

They're called chambered nautilus and are sometimes referred to as living fossils.  They haven't  evolved much in approximately 500 million years.  Imagine that.  They've looked pretty much the same since before dinosaurs roamed the Earth.  Crazy.

This new friend arrived in a very large and heavy box last week.  He's our 30+ pound snapping turtle (32 lbs to be precise).

Check out those claws!

And then there's this:

I'm not going to tell you more about this ferocious looking guy.  But he's arriving tomorrow and I can't wait for you to see him.

This is an adventure through time (hundreds of millions of years, actually) told with a focus on the water and the evolution of the Great Lakes basin.  
And while it won't be 100% complete until the grand opening in June, we're taking down the barriers tomorrow allowing Memorial weekend visitors a first look at Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life.
There will be plenty to see!

Waking up otter

Breakfast? Already? Our female, Anang, is definitely not a morning otter. She would love to sleep in whenever she can. I often let her sleep longer if she wants.

Both otters get a few fleece blankets to sleep with. She loves hers! She makes a little cocoon with them. The male, Zhoosh, mostly just sleeps on top of them, he isn't picky.

Zhoosh is more of a morning otter than Anang. He will often be wide awake when we arrive and ready to eat.

Here he is just waiting for his "sister" to get up so they can eat together. The good news is, right after this, I fed him and let Anang sleep in.