North Carolina Trip Part II: The Wildlife

One of the many things my daughters noticed on our North Carolina beach vacation was the different wildlife. Living in a landlocked state we don't see too many aquatic animals in the wild.  Not the case on the ocean.  On the one rainy day of our trip we went to the Pine Knolls Aquarium.  Everyone on the isle had the same idea as us so the place was swamped, but we had a great time.  It was cool talking to my daughters about aquatic life they had never seen before.  My little one really enjoyed the penguins.  She got a kick out of the penguin who was scratching his belly with his beak.

Now we all expect to see different fish and animals at zoos and aquariums but we don't always expect to see new life in the actual wild.  The beach itself was full of life.  A few of the shells my older daughter found had small crabs (hermit?) in them.  Then there were the sand fleas.  We noticed these the first day but had to google what they were.  We worked hard on catching them.  The little buggers are washed up by the waves but quickly bury themselves in the wet sand.  The bigger ones bury themselves quickly.  This picture of  sand flea I grabbed from the web.  I didn't have my camera with me at the time.  We later discovered that an easier way to catch a sand flea is to walk to the shore line and scoop your hands into the sand.  As your fingers burrow down, you'll feel their somewhat hard shells.  With every scoop of wet sand you'll likely have at least one large sand flea.  My older daughter thought they were cool and we collected several (and a few small fish) in a bucket of water and sand.  We released them before leaving.

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Another cool sight occurred on a kids eco-adventure trip to a small island.  At the shore of the island we saw two horse crabs in the process of mating.  This I was lucky enough to catch on my own camera.  The guide who was with us caught a jelly fish that we were allowed to touch.  Very rubbery feeling.  Unlike with the sand fleas, my daughter was a bit too tentative to touch the jelly fish.  It scared her a bit.

In addition to these we saw several dolphins from the deck of our beach house on multiple days.  While geocaching we scared a deer that surprised us and ran in the other direction.  In the end this was an excellent trip that introduced my daughters to many different animals/fish.  Even I was surprised at what we saw.  Sometimes the best science comes unplanned!  So the next time you take a vacation, pay attention to your surroundings.  You might see something cool that you've never seen before.