6/19/2011 – (GTM) Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve
The GTM Educational Center had some amazing displays. I participated in a Scavenger Hunt in which I had to find out how many birds were in the Estuary Diorama, what kinds of birds, are sharks teeth all the same, which animal hanging from the ceiling had the longest tail and strangest head, how many fish in the tanks, any animals in the Estuary Aquarium Tank that are not fish, different crabs and different types of sea beans. The research center is filled with informational exhibits, aquariums, and an outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Guana River Marsh Aquatic Preserve. The Guana Reserve is over 60,000 acres that have the ocean, beaches, coastal scrub, saltmarsh and mangrove estuary, freshwater marsh, maritime hammock and pine flatwoods.
There were a few things that were interesting in the Research Center. The animal models hanging from the ceiling were so realistic and I learned that only 3 of them were mammals. I found the sea beans to be fascinating. They have a display with these sea beans and interestingly enough they are not found in the sea. They are actual seeds from tropical plants. Many of these sea beans actually wash up on the beach and come from Africa, Asia, and Australia. The display of the shark teeth was interesting also. They had a display of what they called the Extinct Mega-toothed Shark teeth. They were gigantic. The image of the shark compared to a human is really scary. It would look like us compared to a dime. In the vision they showed the shark would be us and we would be the dime! This shark is thought to be about 80 feet long.
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