As 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. We recently put four lined seahorses onto exhibit that were bred on-site at the VLM. Aside from simply raising them to adulthood – which is a task in itself – we also “train” them to feed in a particular location. This is a process that…
These two day old seahorses are just a few from our latest cohort of juvenile lined seahorses Hippocampus erectus. These youngsters require constant attention and therefore have a small tank all to their own. We currently have three separate systems – one for breeding adults,…
Sturgeon are ancient creatures, first showing up in the fossil record nearly 200 million years ago. The current Family Acipenseridae, that contains the only two Virginia species of the 23 species, the Atlantic sturgeon A. oxyrhynchus and the shortnose sturgeon A. brevirostrum, has been around…
The juvenile loggerhead we acquired in October from NC Aquariums is now on exhibit in our Chesapeake Bay Aquarium. The time between his acquisition and his exhibit debut on December 26th was well spent getting him (there actually is no way to tell the gender…
One of the more interesting aspects of our Cypress Swamp habitarium is the variety of species; from the American alligator and several turtle species to over a dozen fish species. But that’s just in the water. The two-story glassed-in replica of a Virginia swamp also…
This video shows the new turtle learning to feed in her new enclosure at the VLM Before a new sea turtle is introduced into our Chesapeake Bay Aquarium, we must first ensure (among many other things) that it will be able to acquire food regularly…
After we permanently transferred our unreleasable adult loggerhead sea turtle “Christi” to a larger exhibit at Dallas World Aquarium in 2009, we began to partner with NC aquariums to acquire juvenile sea turtles that we could display for three years and then be released back…
A large male redbreast Lepomis auritus in breeding colors The term “sunfish” generally refers to fishes from the Family Centrarchidae, comprised of 30 species (including several bass species and crappie), but to most people “sunfish” are species from the Genus Lepomis: bluegill, pumpkinseed, longear, warmouth,…
This first video was taken today during our 11 am trout feeding program the Mountain Cove Exhibit. The main exhibit has three distinct sections: brown trout (immediately below the waterfall), the mountain stream (home to darters and dace, including the P. rex), and this portion…
This video of Percina rex in the wild was taken from the Nottoway River, a relatively pristine tannin-stained river that forms the headwaters of the Chowan drainage system. The Nottoway is exceptionally rich in species of fishes and quite beautiful as well. The footage is…