Travel Diary: Boston MA
Adventure update: Here's what did not happen. The ship did not travel through a mysterious time portal when it entered the port in Boston. We did not witness any events of the American revolution. As a consequence, tea was one of the few pollutants not in Boston Harbor.
Left disappointed, once again, we had to make our own fun during shore leave in Boston. Michele, being the classier of us, went off to art museums and enriched herself. I went off to the New England Aquarium. I like public aquariums. The fish don’t seem to mind captivity the way mammals might. And they are pretty, or at least strange-looking.
The centerpiece of the New England Aquarium is pretty much the same as all public aquariums: a giant reef tank filled with great ocean fish. Sharks and the like. It is flashy and colorful. It is what the casual fan wants to see: sharks and stuff. A big ol’ sea turtle is usually included. All that is fine. But my measure of a quality aquarium is how many varieties of bony-tongued fishes Osteoglossinae. Commonly called arowanas I like to discover how many varieties are represented in a public aquarium. Back in the 1980s I had a 100 gallon (379 liter) fish tank with a South American Arowana (osteoglossum bicirrhosum) named Winston. Winston died in a tragic power failure during a Minnesota winter.
The New England Aquarium acquitted itself quite well on the arowana front. Arowanas are found on four different continents: South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia; the New England Aquarium had three of the four.
This is the African arowana. I suspect it was injured at some point because it has that strange angle in its back.
My meager photography skills weren't enough to get a good picture of the South American arowana. And that damn red-spotted fish kept photo bombing. Arowanas spend most of their time on the surface of the water. They are tremendous jumpers and can snatch insects out of the air and have been known to take birds off of low hanging tree branches. Hence their nickname, "Water monkey."
This is the Asian arowanna. Many consider it the most beautiful of the lot. Still photos don't really do any of the arowanas justice since you miss the iridescence of their scales as they slide through the water. Asian arowanas are sometimes called "dragonfish" for their resemblance to a Chinese dragon and, in some Asian cultures are good-luck symbols.
The New England Aquarium is also a center for the conservation of right whales. That being the case you'd think they would have fed this one better:
Ha ha! A little endangered species humor there.
And now, here's a joke for the history of biology crowd! The skeletal structure of the right whale's flipper:
Paging Richard Owen, amiright folks?
And, as a bonus, some African penguins:
Apparently, there are other reasons to visit Boston, but I admit I don't know what they are. More adventures to come!
jpj stories by John Jackson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
