Octopus Hugs and Stingray Kisses

Wanna hug? This is the Pacific Octopus at The Mississippi River Museum. Isn't he a handsome fella? He was doing his morning hot laps when I arrived. He was practically running around the circle of his tank.  He would only stop to investigate that pipe you see in the lower left. At first I thought that it was a piece that had somehow come off the aquarium, but turns out it's his toy. He would stop, stick an arm in it, turn it around a little and put it back down and continue on his way. I must have stood there for 20 minutes watching his antics. Better than the Kardashians any day!

I signed up to help hand feed the rays in the afternoon. This picture was taken from the second floor balcony. The kite-shaped ones are Cow Faces Sting Rays. Their noses look a lot like cow noses.  Their wingspan is probably about 3-3.5 feet. They 'fly' all around the tank, using lots of energy so they get fed twice a day. That smaller, rounder ones are Yellow Rays. They are more sluggish and pretty much sit on the bottom of the tank so they are only fed in the morning. 

I got there early and petted them for a while. They come over to the sides of the tide pool-like tank so you can run your hand down their backs. Some of them stick their faces out of the water to have a look at you. It's pretty neat. Just before they are fed, the staff makes everyone stop petting them until after they have been fed. This is so the rays don't get confused every time a hand is in the water.

The naturalist said that normally they have around 10-15 folks sign up and everyone gets around three pieces of fish to feed the rays, but that afternoon was inexplicably quiet and there were only three of us, so we got to feed them all the fish! It took 15 -20 minutes and was such a blast! Sometimes they are fed shrimp, but today's entree was smelts. You take a smelt and hold it between your fingers like a cigarette, then you slide your palm down the inside of the tank wall, about elbow deep, and they come from below and swim up your hand. When their mouth, which is quite far down on their underside, come in contact with the smelt, they suck it right out of your fingers. It feels like little stingray kisses! The Cow Noses are pretty messy eaters, but that's OK.  The little Yellows zoom around the bottom like Roombas, vacuuming up any random bits that get missed.

It was such an amazing experience and I highly recommend it if you are in the Dubuque area. It might be a bit too intense for little kids, but pre-teens on up could handle it. Like I said, it was a fluke that there was only 3 of us, so sign-up early to be sure sure to be included! You too can add 'Stingray Food Transfer Technician' to your resume!