During this past week, I traveled to Ohio to visit the cities of Cleveland and Toledo in order to go to an aquarium and a zoo. It has always been a dream of mine, and I was finally able to fulfill that! It was a great experience to see and learn about all sorts of different land and water creatures and I would love to visit more establishments around the country.
My first stop was to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium suggested by another Whyville citizen, iPeny. I am extremely grateful that she recommended this aquarium to me as it was a wonderful place to visit. I took this photograph with my phone of a cute and silly stingray in their infamous shark tube. He was suctioned to the tube and the very first thing I noticed was his adorable smile! Even though what appears to be eyes are actually not, the illusion of him smiling was too cute to not take a picture of. Here are some quick facts (as usual!) about stingrays:
-The average lifespan of a stingray in the wild is typically 15-25 years, which is longer than most domesticated pets! If and when you see a stingray (beware of those poisonous barbs!), wish it a happy birthday as it may be older than you!
-A stingray can grow to become 6.5 feet/2 meters. Do you know a human that size because I sure don't! Stingrays can also be a little on the hefty size reaching up to almost 800 pounds/350 kilograms in weight! I think some stingrays might need to go on a diet; perhaps eating more greens instead of the usual carnivorous diet.
-Stingrays are actually on the threatened species list as many of them are hunted for their spine/tail for the barb. Who would want to hurt these cute creatures; I mean, just look at that smile!
-The venom that is located in the barb of their spine was actually used as a local anesthetic by Ancient Greek dentists!
-Steve Irwin was killed by an unfortunate stingray accident back in 2006 as he was filming for a documentary. This unfortunate event was rare as stingrays are very docile creature and only attack if they feel severely threatened. Experts believed the stingray that killed Steve Irwin thought it was being attacked by a shark, which led it to attack numerous times.
Stay tuned next week for another photograph of an adorable creature from my trip!
