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Virginia Fishes

Virginia FishesAs the Virginia Living Museum's Aquarium Curator, Stacey Murray-Rester and her team of aquarists oversee the indoor aquatic habitats and aquatic program animals representing over 15o species of indigenous fish and invertebrates living in habitat aquariums ranging from 30 to 30,000 gallons. Her passion for Virginia Fishes is shared here.

Oyster Castle Reef Construction Part II

August 25, 2016 Several VLM staff members from three departments recently headed to Chincoteague over two day-long sessions in May to help the Nature Conservancy construct artificial oyster reefs out of concrete “castles”. Staff and volunteers met at Chincoteague wild and beautiful USFWS National Wildlife Refuge…

“Fred” the nurse shark makes his debut

  Watch this video of nurse shark entering tank. Our relationship with “Fred” began with an email. Our aquarium professionals’ list-serve occasionally includes postings for animals that need to be rehoused for a variety of reasons. Most of these fishes have outgrown their tanks at…

Seahorse Genetics Project

The VLM is part of the lined seahorse SSP (Species Survival Plan), as part of the goal to “cooperatively manage specific, and typically threatened or endangered, species populations” by breeding seahorses at our facility and sharing/exchanging surplus with other institutions involved in the SSP. A major part of any…

Candy darter part II

Last year, Nick Little – a former VLM colleague, now a keeper at the National Zoo – and I went in search of the elusive candy darter Etheostoma osburni, an exceptionally beautiful fish. Darters are reclusive by nature and finding them at all is the main…

Tripletails get up close and personal on video

Tripletails Lobotes surinamensis are unusual fish but are even more unusual to find in our area; they are occasional late summer visitors to Virginia waters. They are more common further south particularly in the Gulf states where they hang around structure either inshore (pilings, bridges) or…