Not just any aquarium

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Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium programs featured here: Mote Aquarium

Stories on this page: Our awesome AquariumNew (and really old) species at Mote AquariumAquarium Conservation LabOtterly curious

More Aquarium stories are here: Connecting re-Mote-ly during COVID-19
 


OUR AWESOME AQUARIUM

Even in the toughest years, Mote Aquarium brings its community something irreplaceable. In 2020 the community showed its gratitude when Mote:

  • Won Sarasota Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best Place to Take The Kids.
     
  • Won the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best Tourist Attraction and was runner-up for their Best Children’s Attraction.
     
  • Won the Best of SRQ Local Silver Award for Best Attraction.

Mote Aquarium isn’t just a visitor favorite—it has also been accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 2003. That means that Mote has been thoroughly reviewed every five years to ensure it has met and will continue to meet ever-rising standards in categories including animal care and welfare, veterinary programs, scientific advancement, conservation, education and safety. In addition to Mote Aquarium on City Island, Sarasota, Mote staff maintain 17 other offsite aquariums—eight in Sarasota, six in Key West and three in Islamorada in the Florida Keys.
 


NEW (AND REALLY OLD) SPECIES AT MOTE AQUARIUM

  • This year, Mote Aquarium brought the awe-inspiring exhibit Savage Ancient Seas to Sarasota, featuring replicated skeletons from the late Cretaceous Period—about 80 million years ago—to visitors with a limited-time display. Guests traveled “back in time” along a sidewalk with a geologic timeline and entered a new (old) world where turtles had 12-foot shells, seabirds had teeth, and “sea monsters” with powerful jaws prowled beneath the waves.
    This exhibit was sponsored locally by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax.
     
  • Mote Aquarium always has something new to discover, including new resident animals. After Mote Aquarium reopened this year, visitors spotted some new arrivals—odd-looking salamanders called axolotls, which are known for ability to regrow limbs; huge cane toads that pose massive challenges as an invasive species; shrimpfish that swim with their snouts pointing straight down; and other ocean oddities.

    Altogether, Mote Aquarium provided a home to 400 animal species and seven subspecies this year—including threatened species of sea turtles and manatees, stunning sharks, fishes and invertebrates of all shapes and sizes, and a special set of corals that were “rescued” ahead of the deadly outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease on Florida’s Coral Reef. Mote and many other partners in the Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project, led by AZA, are holding thousands of coral colonies among certified facilities, to preserve native genetic varieties of corals for reef restoration efforts.
     

AQUARIUM CONSERVATION LAB

This year, Mote’s Aquarium Conservation Lab (ACL) expanded its efforts to breed and raise water-dwelling animals for conservation and education in Mote Aquarium and other AZA-accredited institutions committed to the same high standards of care.

AZA-accredited facilities strive to exhibit healthy, genetically diverse and sustainably sourced animals, to help visitors of all ages develop their own passion for marine conservation. By culturing animals in-house, Mote Aquarium biologists lessen the need to collect from wild populations.

Visitors can see Mote’s ACL in action through windows beside the Deep Sea Diner in Mote Aquarium.

This year, ACL breeding efforts produced:

  • More than 250 neon gobies (Elacatinus oceanops). These “cleaner fish” provide services (such as removing dead skin) for other fishes found on healthy coral reefs. Raising them benefits other fishes that share their habitats at Mote.
     
  • More than 200 peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni). Of these, 112 were sent to six different AZA institutions caring for corals in the Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project. The peppermint shrimp help protect the corals by eating a pest anemone called Aiptasia, which grows in coral habitats and has tentacles that can sting the corals. Keeping the corals healthy is crucial—they have an important “job” to do. These corals were rescued from Florida’s Coral Reef ahead of the ongoing, major outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease in an effort to preserve native coral genetic diversity for restoration efforts.
     
  • Six short-clawed spider crabs (Libinia emarginata)—the first members of this species bred by Mote. The six juvenile crabs are growing up fast; they’re about the size of half-dollars and will grow until their shells are about 4 inches across with a leg span of 1 foot.
     
  • 150 Florida stone crabs (Menippe mercenaria). Some are now living in the “Oh Baby!” gallery where visitors can stop by and see them; their habitat is within the aquaculture exhibit. Some were shared with Mote scientists conducting stone crab research to understand the challenges facing this important but declining fishery species.
     

OTTER-LY CURIOUS

Visitors love watching the energetic North American river otters running, swimming, exploring and interacting in the “Otters & Their Waters” area of Mote Aquarium. They’re not only fun to watch—they’re also fascinating sources of new knowledge. These otters, originally brought to Mote as rescued orphans, have since been trained by Mote staff in many behaviors that benefit their care and allow them to participate in research voluntarily.

Mote Aquarium biologists and a New College of Florida researcher are studying curiosity in North American river otters with the help of Mote's trained, resident otters: "Huck," "Pippi" and "Jane." By learning about otters, the study partners are gathering knowledge that can enhance otter care practices while potentially helping humans understand ourselves better.

Comparative psychologists often study animal behavior and thought to help understand the human mind. For example, research into how rats navigate mazes has helped scientists understand how human memory works, with direct implications for treating brain damage and cognitive decline with aging and Alzheimer’s.

One challenging human trait to study is “behavioral flexibility,” the ability to respond to situations in a variety of ways and make choices rather than responding automatically through instinct or simple learned associations (one popular example of the latter is dogs salivating at the sound of a bell because they’ve been taught to associate it with food). Behavioral flexibility is possible in part because we’re curious about new things. Our curiosity means that we’re drawn to novelty for its own sake, without the promise of an external reward.

If scientists can understand why human behavior is so flexible, how it got that way, and what are its benefits, costs and limits, then they can better understand big pieces of the human experience—curiosity, play, and learning. To do this, it helps to compare humans with other animals that have some behavioral flexibility, using our differences and similarities to see ourselves more clearly.

Otters are known to explore and encounter many new things in the wild, and their behavior seems to be flexible—able to deal with many different environments, prey animals, interactions and challenges. In short, they seem like great models to help study our own behavioral flexibility and curiosity. 

This year, Mote Aquarium biologists advanced a new study of curiosity in resident otters Huck, Pippi and Jane to see if they were drawn more to novelty than to familiar, expected rewards. The biologists taught the otters that certain objects are associated with food rewards, while others are not. Then they paired these familiar rewarding and unrewarding objects with a range of novel objects and watched how often otters choose novel objects. The biologists are now analyzing results and comparing the otters against a range of other species with different ecologies and social structures to ask: How curious are otters compared with others?

Mote Aquarium biologists are also wrapping up another study on how otters solve problems. Many animals stick with a solution that has worked before, but humans keep exploring for different, potentially better solutions. Do otters do that? Mote biologists investigated by giving the otters puzzle boxes containing food that can be accessed in multiple ways. They documented how long it took the otters to solve the puzzle, and how many solutions they tried. Soon, the biologists will study whether otters can open a box more easily if they watch another otter do it first—if so, this could be an advantage for their behavioral flexibility.

Mote Aquarium biologists hope that their otter behavior research will expand to answer even more questions, such as how they respond to new locations, how their preferences change over time and how play intersects with flexible and social learning.

Huck, Pippi and Jane represent one of many training success stories at Mote Aquarium, where animals such as manatees, sea turtles, sharks and other fishes participate in training as part of a healthy care routine. 

Mote's otter research is made possible with generous support from John MacLennan.


Image at top of page: Visitors enjoy Mote Aquarium. Credit: Cameron McPhail/Mote Marine Laboratory