A Very Fishy Experience

By Kayanna

On Saturday, we went to the Liege Aquarium Museum. The aquarium was in the basement while the museum was on the top floor. We had to climb a lot of stairs to get from one to the other. Or you could take the elevator. I'm guessing the  elevator was a lot easier. I took the stairs.

The aquarium had all sorts of things. We saw Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Bubbles (the yellow fish in the Tank Gang), and Debb/Flo. It even said "Dory est ici!" (Dory is here) over her tank. The eels were captivating. They even had piranhas which actually aren't the man-eaters that we portray them as. There were some really weird eels which were really small and half-way in the sand. We all laughed over them. We all enjoyed watching a fish that was gigantic, we could just barely see it, but we could tell that it must eat a ton of food. There was a remora that Sarah was telling us all about from what was mentioned in "Wild Kratts". The octopus wedged in between a rock and a decoration was visible from the eye that you could see poking out. Sea stars were everywhere. One of the most amazing things was a catfish that was at least two feet long. It wasn't moving. A Dogfish shark was moving quite a lot and you could see its gills moving.

The aquarium also had an exhibit about the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Samples of coral were on display while screens informed you about the growth of a reef, life cycles and the exhibit itself. They also had a flourishing reef with many types of fish, there was one fish that was bright yellow except for its lips, they were bright purple. Molly said that it was wearing lipstick and I agreed. In a seperate tank, they had sharks. Small sharks, but sharks all the same. The exhibit also detailed threats to the reef and how we can help prevent things like global warming.

Way upstairs, the rooms were full of skeletons, skins, bottles, replicas, and stuffed animals. Real animals, not play animals. One room was devoted to birds and insects. Another to mammals. One section had fish and reptiles, amphibians too. Models of jellyfish were captivating. The models were made out of thin glass and very fragile. In the mammal room, they compared tigers to house cats. Prey, predators, and primates were all represented. There was also a whale skeleton. It was massive. With the fish stood a model of a coelacanth, a fish that was thought to be extinct until one was found alive near Australia. An anaconda skeleton and skin were long and unexpected. Octopuses and jellyfish in jars were disgusting to behold, and the stuffed heads on the wall were rather interesting. The only living things on the top floor were the patrons and a koi pond in the mammal room.

The Aquarium Museum is actually a part of the University of Liege, so my mom suspects that there are classrooms on the floors between the aquarium and the museum.

It was a very educational experience.