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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.

Ponds

Virginia has many ponds and all of them contain a surprising amount of life. Ponds are generally defined as water bodies that are shallow enough for sunlight to reach the bottom. Therefore, they are often covered with and full of aquatic vegetation and plankton, making…

I want to do what you do!

We recently had two long-time employees, Jessi Shupe and Heidi Pankratz, move on from the VLM to new opportunities. While it is hard to lose good employees and even harder to replace their knowledge immediately, we are happy for them. The two positions have recently…

crabs and lobsters

The VLM has many species of invertebrates and almost every common crab species found in VA and a few that aren’t. Of course we display the iconic blue crab Callinectes sapidus, but also several hermit crab species, mud crabs, ghost crabs, two spider crab species, and…

Collecting season

As the water warms this spring, our collecting opportunities expand. I generally have a mental list of species we would like to have here, but there are always fishes we need each year as they outgrow their exhibits and are transitioned to larger ones (e.g….

Skate Exhibit up and running

A few months ago on a recreational trip to Oregon Inlet, North Carolina I noticed an unusually large amount of flotsam around the southern jetty. Always on the lookout for interesting exhibit props, I discovered wooden poles, formally from a pound net, that would make…

RAW 2011 – by Patrycja Lawryniuk

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, my colleague Jessi Shupe and I attended the Regional Aquatics Workshop (RAW), hosted by the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach, VA. At the workshop, we attended lecture sessions with different speakers from all over the world! On Tuesday,…

Sharks and Rays

Last Thursday prior to our weekly SCUBA program, we added our two male lemon sharks to the 30,000 gallon Chesapeake Bay tank.   Before moving the sharks, we had to first remove the southern stingray from the exhibit, as skates and rays are natural prey for many shark species. Our…

Are You Feeding?

Probably the most common question we get from the visitors as we work in or around the exhibits is, “Are you feeding?” People love to watch the animals eat so I think the question may be born from wishful thinking. We do have feedings for the public at 11am and…

Trip to Duke Marine Lab

Every spring, students from local Christopher Newport University make a trip to the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC.  A couple of aquarium employees from the VLM accompany them on the trip to help with identification and to lend an extra hand to the chaperoning professor….