Reisers at Monterey Bay Aquarium

March 31

Our second day at Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) was a really fun day. We got to see the Sea Otters, and many more things. This picture is of Rosco, the male sea otter, eating lunch. Yesterday, we told you how much a sea otter eats at each meal. Do you remember? They eat almost 1/3 of their body weight each day. That's about the same as an adult human eating 50 pounds of food every day!

Learn more about the Monterey Bay Aquarium here. They even have a live kelp cam (if you check during the day) where you can see their Kelp Forest.

The weather was rainy all day, with a temperature of about 52 degrees.

Otters have a very high metabolism (changing food to energy) to keep them warm in the cold water because they don't have a layer of blubber like whales and seals do. Sea otter also stay warm with very special fur. Otter fur has 1 million hairs per square inch. That's 1,000 times more dense than humans have. That fine fur traps air bubbles and insulates them. They spend a lot of time washing and grooming their fur, so it will protect them from the cold.

Amanda learned that adult sea otters weigh as much as 90 pounds.

Harrison learned that anemones like the rocky shore the most because there are lots of places to stick and the current brings by lots of food. The bat rays live on the sandy seafloor because they are flat and they can hide in the sand.

At the aquarium they use big foam plugs called "pigs" to clean out the tubes and pipes that bring seawater into the tanks because shells and plants grow in the pipes.

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