Category: Aquarium Pyramid (Page 7 of 8)

All About Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid

November 27, 2012 / Moody Gardens

Experience the beauty of the North Pacific, South Pacific, South Atlantic, and Caribbean with a visit to the ten-story blue-glass aquarium building. This incredible attraction features 1.5 million gallons of water and more than ten thousand marine animals. The Aquarium Pyramid is divided into four regions, each representing a different area of the oceanic world.

Caribbean Exhibit

The Caribbean Exhibit is the largest of the four. It features sharks, sea turtles, eels, and thousands of beautiful tropical fish that swim overhead as you wander through an underwater tunnel. The tunnel completely surrounds guests and is filled with one million gallons of water.

South Atlantic Exhibit

The penguins of Moody Gardens reside in this area of the pyramid! The South Atlantic Exhibit is designed to closely resemble the rocky beaches of the South Georgia Islands. You can view the penguins from both above and below the surface. With our Penguin Encounter program you can even get up close with the penguin residents and take home some of their fabulous artwork.

North Pacific Exhibit

The furry seals reside in the North Pacific Exhibit. Watch as they play on the rocky shore and dive into the water. A few feet away, you can watch the sea urchins, anemones, and other colorful marine creatures in the tide pool. A kelp forest houses the rich and diverse underwater world representing Northern California to the Gulf of Alaska.

South Pacific Exhibit

Go on a journey through the depths of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea! The South Pacific Exhibit features a tide pool with vibrant sea anemones and sea urchins. In the lower level, you can see more than 200 species of fish, stingrays, and sharks in their beautiful underwater environment.

New Exhibit: Sharks in Depth

The newest exhibit at the Moody Gardens explores shark fact versus fiction, shark anatomy, and shark behavior through hands-on activities. Learn how sharks survive, how they sense their pray, and what threats there are to the shark population. This exhibit is better than Shark Week! With an Aquarium Pyramid Shark Passport, you can learn to identify shark species from around the world.

If you’re looking to plan your family weekend getaways in Texas, don’t miss out on the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens. As part of our recent holiday offer, you will gain admission to the Aquarium Pyramid!

Why You Can’t Skip a Visit to Moody Gardens During Your Trip to Galveston

November 21, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 0 Comments

Moody Gardens is the perfect place to visit on your family weekend getaways in Texas. There is so much to do at Moody Gardens that it’s impossible to fit all the fun into one day! Not only are the year-round attractions incredible, but we also have seasonal fun depending on what time of the year you visit. You can’t skip visiting the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid, Rainforest Pyramid, 3D Theater, and more!

Aquarium Pyramid: The Aquarium Pyramid is the largest pyramid at Moody Gardens. It houses four distinct ocean environments. When wandering through this big blue pyramid, you and your family will be entertained and entranced by the five species of penguins, the furry seals, and the famous Squirt, our blind sea lion. The colorful fish and coral reefs are nature’s art at its finest. Watch the sharks, sea turtles, eels, and tropical fish swim all around you as you walk through an underwater tunnel!

Rainforest Pyramid: A major enhancement project has allowed guests to experience the Rainforest Pyramid in a whole new way! You can now walk through an entry that overlooks a new Amazon River otter exhibit. A new treetop path leads you through the canopy level of the pyramid, allowing you to explore and see the monkeys, sloths, and other tree-dwellers closer than ever. Don’t forget to surround yourself with beautiful butterfly species in the butterfly exhibit. There are ten stories of rainforest magic to explore!

Moody Gardens Theaters. Choose from three different theaters, giving you three different experiences. At the MG 3D Theater you can enjoy larger-than-life images projected onto the largest movie screen in Texas. The Ridefilm combines both ride and a film, and the 4D Special FX Theater allows you to see, hear, feel, and smell the action with special effects such as wind, smoke, mist, leg ticklers, and seat buzzers!

The Aquarium Pyramid, Rainforest Pyramid, and the theaters at Moody Gardens are just a few of the reasons you can’t miss out on this famous tourist attraction. Learn more by visiting www.moodygardens.com. Don’t miss the Festival of Lights this holiday season if you are looking for Christmas events in Texas. We also have a special holiday offer going on!

Moody Gardens to develop collaborative conservation project in the Philippines

November 19, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 0 Comments

Earlier this month, members of the Moody Gardens animal care team traveled to the Philippines to begin a conservation partnership with a marine aquarium facility in Subic Bay.

The project partners Moody Gardens with a nonprofit organization known as Wildlife In Need (WIN). This project pairs resources with conservation needs in one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet.

WIN is the nonprofit arm of Ocean Adventure, Southeast Asia’s only open water marine park. It is nestled between one of Luzon’s only remaining intact primary growth rainforests and a marine-protected area that includes two small bays on the southern shore of the mouth of Subic Bay.

There are three primary goals for the trip – to formalize a Memorandum of Understanding, develop a coral reef conservation program, and explore terrestrial conservation opportunities.

The Moody Gardens team is working with additional field conservation partners including the California Academy of Science, the Florida Aquarium and SECORE.org to design a land-based coral nursery lab, and begin long term coral reef habitat monitoring as the first step towards active restoration work.

Following the trip, Moody Gardens’ staff will provide direct and in-kind support, as well as technical assistance, in building the coral nursery lab. Their ultimate goal is to establish a facility similar to the SECORE lab at the Curacao Sea Aquarium. It will support technical workshops and regional reef restoration efforts at the same time that it serves a public education role as an aquarium exhibit.

Please refer back to the Moody Gardens blog for updates from the field.

Cool Fun at Moody Gardens: Penguin Encounter

November 15, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 3 Comments

Get to know the penguin residents at Moody Gardens. With the Penguin Encounter program, you will get the opportunity to get up close with the penguins and see what goes on behind the scenes! Here are valuable facts about the Penguin Encounter:

The program lasts for 45 minutes
Guests start at the front of the exhibit and move on to see the back of the exhibit and the penguin food preparation kitchen
A Moody Gardens biologist will teach you about penguin biology, training, enrichment, and care
Guests get to watch a penguin create art as part of an enrichment activity
Tickets are $50 a person
Children 3 and under are free
Tickets are sold on a first come, first serve basis
Guests must also purchase admission to the *Aquarium Pyramid
Children 12 and under must be with an adult
The program is at 1 pm on Saturdays and Sundays
Depending on the mood of the penguin, you may be able to touch them!
It’s about 45 degrees in the Penguin Encounter area, so dress accordingly
The penguins love to pose for your pictures

Private Penguin Encounters are also available for up to four people. Private encounters can be scheduled based upon guest’s convenience and availability. Admission is $350 per group and includes admission to the Aquarium Pyramid, and a unique piece of penguin art.

The Seal and Penguin Experience shows guests what it’s like to be a South Atlantic and North Pacific exhibit keeper for a day. The experience is six hours long and allows various activities such as feeding penguins, and helping out the biologists. The $175 (per person) package includes admission to the Aquarium Pyramid, lunch, a photograph, and a unique piece of penguin art. Participants must be 16 years or older and a maximum of three participants. Be sure to wear closed toe shoes, comfortable clothes, and reserve your package two weeks in advance.

Moody Gardens is the number one place this season for holiday events in Galveston. Join us for more kids activities and family fun. Be sure to keep up with our Moody Gardens blog to learn more about Houston holiday events, the Moody Gardens Hotel, and the Moody Gardens Golf Course!

Arctic Fun at Moody Gardens: Ice Skating

November 14, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 7 Comments

Always dreamed of tying up your skates and gliding around with the stars above you and the winter chill in the air? Then you realize you’re in Texas, and you can’t ice skate outside! There’s rarely snow or ice, especially along the Gulf Coast. Moody Gardens has solved your problem. We have the ONLY outdoor ice skating rink in the region!

Pull on your warm sweaters, slip on your mittens, and head out to the rink. This popular winter activity is fun for the entire family. Don’t worry if you don’t have a pair of skates. We have plenty of sizes available to rent.

Ice skating outside with the Festival of Lights surrounding you is the perfect way to get into the holiday spirit. Whether you’re a veteran ice skater or it’s your first time, everyone is welcome on the Moody Gardens Ice Rink. It’s okay if you slip and fall a few times, no one at Moody Gardens will be laughing at you. We can’t say the same for your friends and family though!

Ice skating is a great way to get all those relatives in town for the holidays out of your house, and making memories together. The outdoor ice rink could be a new family tradition that everyone looks forward to each year. You can also take pictures with Santa while you’re here.

If you’re going to come check out the outdoor ice skating rink, then don’t miss out on our special holiday offer! For a limited time, you can get the Festival of Lights Arctic Package for only $17. The package includes admission to the Festival of Lights, the Aquarium Pyramid, and the To The Arctic 3D documentary. It’s the perfect way to get the whole Moody Gardens holiday experience.

Moody Gardens features the best Houston holiday events and events in Galveston. The family entertainment is non-stop this season.

Sharks: A more diverse species than most realize

August 15, 2012 / Moody Gardens

By Greg Whittaker

Working in the zoo and aquarium industry offers a lot of perks. That’s because we get to work with some of the coolest animals in the world.

As I was walking through the exhibits looking at what our guests see, I started counting the species of sharks and rays we house at Moody Gardens® and the diversity they represent in habitat, diet, behavior and natural history. From the secretive swell sharks and wobbegongs to the large active brown sharks and sand tigers, we have 22 species from Galveston’s local waters to Australian reefs from the other side of the world. We have three species of stingrays that are found in the Amazon River basin and are so completely adapted to living in freshwater that they can’t exist in the brackish delta.

One of the questions we answer while walking through the public galleries is, “Where are the sharks?” Over time we’ve come to realize that most guests are referring to the Caribbean exhibit and the large, easily recognizable species.

You might be surprised to hear that four out of these five are relatively common species in the waters just off Galveston. If they truly were the bloodthirsty human predators they’re portrayed to be, we surely would be losing more tourists and fishermen to the sharky menace.Looking at the tremendous diversity of sharks, rays, skates, guitarfish, sawsharks and sawfish all collectively grouped together as cartilaginous fishes, there are over 1,200 different species. The sharks that gain all of the attention are the ones that grab the headlines in “attacks” on humans, and the five that are generally agreed upon as the top “maneaters” are – great hammerhead, lemon, bull, tiger and white sharks.

In reality, the vast majority of the 100 incidents that are reported worldwide annually are cases of mistaken identity with small, non-dangerous species. Contrast those statistics with the estimated 350 to 500 million sharks that are removed from the world’s oceans every year. Many of those are reproductively mature adults of species that are in perilous population declines and in some cases, they have their fins cut off and are dumped back into the water to die.

Even if you don’t particularly like sharks, you have to see how wasteful shark finning is.

Back to the amazing diversity – whale sharks are the largest fish with a maximum length of 45 feet and weighing as much as 36 tons. Along with basking sharks and megamouth sharks as the most menacing-sized sharks, they all filter feed on plankton and small fish. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the tiny cigar shark reaches a maximum size of only about eight inches long.

The biggest ray species is the manta which can have wing tips that measure almost 24 feet wide and weigh almost 3,000 pounds. Electric rays generate powerful electric currents that protect them from predators and assist in navigating dark murky water and capturing prey. Between sharks and rays is an assortment of species that have aspects of their appearance that match both – a generally flattened body with elongated tails. These include angel sharks, guitarfish, sawsharks and sawfish.

Sharks can fill ecological niches from scavengers to apex predators and have reproductive strategies that include eggs deposited within the reef to complex internal egg incubation, internal hatching and internal cannibalism of siblings.

From this rambling account, you hopefully have gained enough perspective to realize that “sharks” cannot be painted with a simple broad brush stroke. They generally all came from ancient ancestors hundreds of millions of years ago. They fill every available niche and are remarkably adaptable to environmental changes and pressures placed on them.

For every species we can provide care for in the captive aquarium, there are dozens of other species that we simply don’t know enough about. It’s a safe wager that there are untold numbers of species out there that we haven’t even discovered yet.

Catching Shark Fever: One Man’s Birth of Shark Appreciation

August 13, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 0 Comments

By: Greg Whittaker
Animal Husbandry Manager at Moody Gardens

As a boy growing up on a farm in upstate New York my world didn’t include sharks.

Unlike many of my colleagues that had aspirations of becoming Marine Biologists, I had no such lifelong dreams. I was content to spend my free time fishing in our pond, hunting in our woods, swimming on my high school team and generally being a free-spirited rural American kid.

I was steered into Marine Biology by my uncle who touted the field as a wide open frontier with high-wage job opportunities and since it involved both the inherent study of biology and water I thought, “Sounds cool.”

So I packed up what I assumed I would need and moved to Galveston to attend one of the top ranked Marine Biology programs in the nation, although secretly I was more excited about living on an island on the Gulf of Mexico. Most aspects of island life were much different than what I was used to, but there was fishing.

Fortunately for me and the local sharks, my undersized tackle and lack of local fishing knowledge ended most interactions with a speedy “catch and release.” As my conservation ethos and fishing experience both grew, these catch and release episodes were based more on my judgment and less on their toothy grins.

The three sharks that I’ve caught and kept have all ended up in my kitchen as my mom always insisted if I killed something I ate it. Shark meat can be prepared to taste very good, but there are several important steps from the moment you catch it to how you cook it that can change the final taste. I didn’t follow any of these steps and as a result, my fishing activities no longer result in sharks coming home for the dinner table.

I had seen JAWS, and the increasingly ridiculous sequels, and I suppose my observations of the natural world kept me from falling prey to the anti-shark hysteria that those movies ingrained in so many viewers. I did gain just enough fear to feel uneasy during all those late night beach parties when we ventured out past the sandbars into the dark unknown.

I’ve come to appreciate that is a normal healthy phobia that we all should have as we’re entering the predators’ world at dinnertime. Many sharks rely on a balance of sight, smell and sensitive electrical sensing to find their food, and the twilight periods before sunrise and after sunset offer them the perfect competitive advantage in locating prey.

I find myself repeating the same speech every couple of years when we’re asked to comment on a local shark bite incident; “avoid swimming at dusk and dawn, always have a buddy to help out if there is a problem and avoid swimming where large schools of bait fish are found.”

Having worked with sharks in the aquarium environment for the last 24 years, I have a great appreciation for their place in the natural world. They are ancient and perfect in their ability to survive in so many specialized niches. They found their various jobs millions of years ago and continue to adapt to changes in the environment and pressures placed on them. Like apex predators in every ecosystem in the world, sharks are losing the battle with humans; habitat destruction, food web interruption, pollution, trophy hunting and simple misinformation based persecution. They are not the malicious killers portrayed in that 1975 movie that is perhaps responsible for many species’ spiraling populations today.

I still go fishing whenever I can get the time, and I still try to catch sharks as they are very worthy adversaries in that primal tug of war. Pictures are taken and care is given to efficiently release them so they can continue to do their job in the world around me.

The ones we keep are destined to become part of our living collection of ambassadors, maintained in as natural an environment as we can achieve so that our guests can come to see and appreciate them for the beautiful creatures they are. Maybe, if we’re successful and luck is on our side, we might even inspire a growing army of conservation minded individuals to re-evaluate our place in the natural world and take steps to ensure that all species have a future.

Shark Week

August 13, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 0 Comments

One of the most exciting weeks of the year is swimming in and Moody Gardens^® is getting in the spirit with a special program and combo deal.

Moody Gardens biologists are celebrating “Shark Week” with a forum on the myths and realities of these amazing sea creatures. The staff will also discuss the process it goes through to care for the sharks housed in the Aquarium Pyramid^®.

The 30-minute program will run from Aug. 13 through Aug. 17 at the Aquarium Pyramid’s Ocean View Room. The forum starts at 2 p.m. and is included with aquarium admission at that time.

“We want to dispel some of the myths about sharks and give everyone some history and facts about them,” Moody Gardens Animal Husbandry Manager Greg Whittaker said. “There are also a lot of local sharks in the Galveston area that we will give more information on.”

The program will also feature a trivia contest, where a five lucky winners will get a behind the scenes tour of the Aquarium Pyramid’s Caribbean Exhibit each day.

A special combo pass is also being offered to guests during “Shark Week.” For $23.95, visitors receive tickets to the Aquarium Pyramid^® and an aquatic-themed movie at the MG 3D Theater. Movies at the theater include Sharks 3D and The Last Reef 3D. The combo runs from Aug. 12-18.

We will also feature several shark-themed blog posts throughout the week.

“Shark Week,” which has developed a cult following throughout its 25 years on the Discovery Channel, begins on Aug. 12.

NABS Youth Group Dives into Action

June 7, 2012 / Moody Gardens / 0 Comments

The National Association of Black Scuba, or NABS, hosted another successful year for the Youth Educational Summit. For this year’s 9th annual summit, these kids were given the opportunity to visit Moody Gardens, an educational research destination in Galveston, Texas. In conjunction with NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, young adults ages 12 to 18 travel throughout the state to learn about marine life.

Youth participating in the Summit toured the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens and received behind-the-scenes access. Each student was then able to pilot a mini-RO V, remote operated underwater vehicle, in the South Pacific exhibit. NOAA staff and Moody Gardens’ associates were able to educate the benefits of the mini-ROVs and its role in the marine environment.

These activities encourage young adults to broaden their horizons beyond a college experience to include diving and participating in these organizations, noted Chanel McFollins, a four-year member of NABS.

On a deeper and more intimate level, two of the older youth, both certified and experienced divers, participated in a dive session. The two suited up in and swam into the Aquarium Pyramid’s largest tank. Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid is one of the largest on the Gulf Coast, featuring four distinct ocean environments.

Holding more than 1.5 million gallons of water, the two NABS Summit divers swam in the tank with sharks, tunas and barracudas. On the other side of the glass, fellow group members wave from behind the acrylic tunnel with smiles across their faces.

“This was a way for me to share my knowledge, my job and the fun things I get to do with someone else,” said Elizabeth Foster, Moody Gardens’ Dive Safety Officer. “It was a way to give an opportunity to someone who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to have these experiences.”

The mission at NABS is to bring together youth with an interest in the marine sciences; providing them with educational experiences that enhance their knowledge of and respect for marine life, while promoting safe and skilled exploration of the seas through scuba diving.

Each year, NABS youth group travel to different parts of the country and learn about marine life. T.J. Bentley, a long-time member of NABS, particularly enjoyed this year’s trip.

“We’ve done more volunteer work this year and more things for the community to help the organization,” said Bentley. “We get the chance to do what we want to do.”