I found this mindblowingly weird

This 24 pound!!!!! lobster lives at the New England Aquarium and is being trained to do tricks. You can read more about him here.

am I the only one that thinks this is extremely strange?

Macropinna is the name of the extremely strange looking fish, that is probably not going to be found in your local aquariums, but is so interesting I thought it was worth a mention.

It is found at the depths of 2000 to 2600 feet and is currently being studies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute with the help of ROV’s.

Via Underwater Thrills

courtesy of J-Joyce

Betta is a large genus of small, often colorful, freshwater ray-finned fishes in the gourami family. There are 28 known species of betta. The type species is B. picta, the spotted betta. By far the best known Betta species, however, is B. splendens, the Siamese fighting fish.

All the Betta species are small fishes, but they vary considerably in size, ranging from under 2.5 cm total length in B. chanoides to five inches in the Akar betta. Bettas are anabantoids, which means they can breathe atmospheric air thanks to a unique organ called the labyrinth. This accounts for their ability to thrive in low-oxygen water conditions that would kill most other fish, such as rice paddies, slow-moving streams, drainage ditches, and large puddles.

The Nippyfish-blog is all about the Betta fish , Christie is using this blog as a chance to post many of the common questions that she receives about Betta.

Blue crayfish is the same species as normal colored crayfish, The blue color is caused by gene mutation just like albino form of any animal or human species. However, just like other artificial color mutations, this blue color causes that an animal with blue color is eaten very quickly. It is like an animal which has a light panel with a title: I’m here, come and eat me. The blue color can by different at various geographic locations. They can grow to the size about 15 cm in an aquarium.

Eugene Lim from the aquarium lore-blog posted a beautiful picture of a Blue crayfish with his coconut home.

The harbor seal is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern hemisphere. They are found in coastal waters of the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as those of the Baltic and North Seas, making them the most wide-ranging of the pinnipeds.

Harbor seals are brown, tan, or gray, with distinctive V-shaped nostrils. An adult can attain a length of 1.85 meters and a mass of 132 kilograms. Females outlive males. Harbor seals stick to familiar resting spots, generally rocky areas where land predators can’t reach them, near a steady supply of fish to eat.

Shelby a female harbor seal is one of the original pinnipeds of the Aquarium of the Pacific. On grand opening day back in 1998, she was a precocious 3 year old seal peering out at all the visitors through the underwater tunnel.  During the Aquarium’s Grand Opening year you could always find Shelby at the window interacting with guests.

She was so full of energy and curiosity that the original marine mammal staff decided that they needed to train her to do a lot of high energy behaviors to keep her from getting bored.