The Multispecies Aquarium Community

You never know what you’ll find when you open the refrigerator in Pacific Science Center’s Animal Care room. Take for instance this past week. Inside the 40°F refrigerator, slowly swimming around in a plastic container were Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cottongills, our resident Axolotls. What were they doing there?


For almost a year our trio of Mexican axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) has lived in freshwater aquatic bliss only having to share their tank with a few docile guppies. Now the neighborhood has changed. Animal Care has recently acquired some African dwarf frogs (Hymenochirus boettgeri). What could be a better home for the dwarf frogs than the Axolotl tank?

Multispecies aquaria can be challenging to create. We must consider the temperature, salinity and pH of the water that the different species need. Are their environments compatible? With a little research we learned that the freshwater requirements of axolotls, frogs and guppies are pretty much the same.


Next we wondered: Can the African dwarf frogs peacefully coexist with moderately aggressive axolotls? Or should a separate apartment be created for the smaller animals? Considering that the tiny and aptly named African dwarf frogs are just about bite-sized for an axolotl, we elected not to test our luck. We reconfigured the aquarium with a pane of Plexiglas dividing a small portion of the tank for the frogs.

In addition to making spatial arrangements for our new dwarf frog residents we also gave the tank a full clean. As a regular readers may recall, keeping a clean aquarium for axolotls has been difficult. In the meantime, Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cottongills took up temporary residence inside the refrigerator, which gave a little shock to Animal Caretakers dropping off their lunches first thing in the morning.

The aquarium has since been put back together and our aquatic animals appear to be happy and healthy. Come check out our new multispecies aquarium on view for the public.

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Elphaba's Litter

In our last Naked mole-rat article, we announced that one of our two breeding female mole-rats was days away from delivering a litter to the colony. Life Sciences and other Pacific Science Center staff as well as many of our readers have been waiting anxiously as the pregnant female grew.

On Friday, November 13, “Elphaba” gave birth to ten pups. By Saturday morning, it was clear that all was not well with them. Four were found dead that morning, another one Sunday and the remaining five died on the night of November 16. We have lost pups before, but this does not fit a familiar pattern. It is not uncommon for one or two poorly developed animals to be lost the first day. But when larger numbers have failed, they have appeared to thrive until sometime between days 5 and 10. This rapid, early loss is unexpected and we are working with our vet to seek some necropsy information to help explain the phenomenon.


This occurrence is of particular concern because the colony as a whole has shown so many signs of improving health. Above all, we want to rule out any conditions that reflect a threat to the remaining animals.


While we were focusing on Elphaba and her pregnancy, we also noticed that Galinda appears to be pregnant again! We must also keep in mind that nearly all mole-rat colonies only have one queen. Our situation is highly unusual. There is reason to believe that a colony with two queens is untenable in the long-term. We will be watching Galinda’s litter anxiously when it is born. If her pups thrive, it may be a clue as to the status of the two rival queens. If the pups do poorly, we will go back to looking for underlying health problems. Stay tuned!


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Fresh Sheet – November 13, 2009

“Fresh Sheet” is our weekly shipment report of pupae on display in the emerging window. Visit Pacific Science Center’s Tropical Butterfly House and meet our newest residents.


El Salvador

40 - Caligo memnon (Owl Butterfly)
15 - Colobura dirce (Mosaic butterfly)
30 - Consul fabius (Tiger Leafwing)
08 - Heliconius erato (Small Postman)
14 - Heliconius ismenius (Ismenius Longwing)
100 - Morpho peleides (Blue Morpho)
25 - Myselia cyaniris (Blue Wave Butterfly)
40 - Myscelia ethusa (Royal Blue Butterfly)
20 - Papilio pilumnus (Three-tailed Swallowtail)
05 - Tithorea harmonia (Harmonia Tigerwing)

Los Angeles

17 - Charaxes brutus (White-barred Charaxes)
02 - Charaxes candiope (Green-veined Charaxes)
04 - Charaxes castor (Giant Charaxes)
07 - Charaxes cithaeron (Blue-spotted Charexes)
08 - Charaxes protoclea (Flame-bordered Charexes)
10 - Charaxes violetta (Violet-spotted Emperor)
22 - Danaus genutia (Common Tiger)
05 - Euphaedra neophron (Gold-banded Forester)
04 - Euxanthes wakefieldi (Forest Queen)
08 - Graphium agamemnon (Tailed Jay)
40 - Hypolimnas bolina (Great Eggfly)
14 - Papilio helenus (Red Helen)
20 - Papilio lowii (Sunset Swallowtail)
20 - Papilio memnon (Great Mormon)
08 - Papilio nephelus (Yellow Helen)
14 - Papilio nireus (Blue-banded Swallowtail)
19 - Papilio polytes (Polite swallowtail)
10 - Papilio rumanzovia (Crimson Swallowtail)
14 - Parthenos sylvia lilacinus (Blue Clipper)
04 - Parthenos sylvia philppensis (The Clipper)

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Tide Pool Etiquette - Part 1

If you’ve ever been to the Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool at Pacific Science Center, you know the first thing you must do to touch anything is rinse your hands. Now why do you think we have to rinse our hands?




Most aquariums with touch tanks don’t ask visitors to do this! However, most aquariums, including the Seattle Aquarium, have a different filtration system than we do. Many waterfront aquariums use filtered seawater, drawing the water up from a nearby source, cycling it through their systems, and returning it to the source after treating it to destroy any possible contaminants. But at Pacific Science Center, our water is continually recirculated within the tide pool and two filtration vats. Imagine getting soap into the water! The soap would circulate through the tide pool which would be very unfortunate for our animals; this would also apply to other substances! Sunscreen, lotions and even metals can harm the animals. Not only do our visitors rinse their hands, our staff does too. We try to keep our water as free of foreign products as possible.


People don’t always think about sea creatures as living animals. For instance, sea anemones look like plants. We often think of plants as a pretty little object we could carry around, we can’t do that with sea anemones. Our animals need water to live so their habitats are perfect the way they are! Furthermore, it is best to only touch an animal gently instead of trying to pick it up and take it home.

With a good understanding of the Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool habitat, we can next discuss the proper way to handle our critters. Watch this space for a future article!

Nancy, the author of this article, is a Volunteer and a Discovery Corps Internship Graduate. In August she reported on the Tide Pool Guide.

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