Exhibits
Tide Pool Touch TankThis exhibit allows visitors to see and touch live tide pool animals in a simulated rocky shore environment. With the help of ABMI trained docents, visitors will have a chance to touch sea stars, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and decorator crabs just to name a few of the animals in this exhibit.
Making Waves
At this exhibit, visitors will be able, with a push of a button, to create a crashing and surprising wave that washes through this tide pool tank. Visitors will learn of the harsh living conditions along California’s rocky coast and how animals have adapted to survive the pounding waves. Visitors will be able to see how sea stars hold on tight, how crabs hide and how it’s important to be flexible in this ever-moving environment. There’s another interesting aspect of this exhibit, if you watch long enough you will notice the water level rises and falls with real tide levels along our coast.
Dress for Success
Hiding from predators is an important daily task that most marine animals must perform and Decorator Crabs are masters at it. Taking plants and small animals, decorators will apply them to their exoskeletons, which allows them to hide easily in their environment. The aquarium will be divided into two halves. Visitors will be able to watch decorator crabs in action with natural materials like marine algae on one side, and some not so natural materials like colorful pieces of yarn on the other.
Two Eyes, Eight Arms and an Attitude
Octopi are a big hit to most visitors who find them fascinating to watch. Octopi are truly very shy and docile animals, but drop a crab in this tank and that will change fast. Octopi can be very aggressive when it comes to food and will use their eight arms lined with suction cups to grab and hold food. An octopus will also change its color depending on their mood and to camouflage. If they’re calm, they will match the color of their surroundings, but they’ll turn brick red when they’re angry.
Sea Cumbers! Those guys have guts.
Talk about a defense mechanism. When predators threaten Sea Cumbers they literally spill their guts. That way the attacker has something to eat while he Sea Cumbers sneak away. Imagine the shrieks of delight when visitors witness this live action drama.
Plankton: A Universe in a Drop of Water
In this highly interactive display guests will work with trained Cal Poly docents watching extreme enlargements of single cell sea life. Our State of the Art, Video Microscope will enable participants to build an exhibit that changes with each visitor as they view pictures on a monitor built right into a display mural.
Jelly Fish
What appears to be one individual is actually an entire colony of animals. To allow our guests of witness this reality, specimens will be housed in a Kreisel tank that suspends the creatures in a gyroscope of water.
Kelp Forest
This exhibit will hold 500 gallons of seawater and house large indigenous fishes in a California Kelp Bed similar to those found submerged off Avila Beach. It’s almost like scuba diving off shore, with out ever leaving the Institute.
Shark Exhibit
Fascinating and frightening sharks are the ultimate survivors. Not only because they have the ability to see, hear, and smell under water but because they sense electrical impulses given off by their predators and prey. This 1000 gallon tank will allow visitors a intriguing insight to one or our planet’s greatest denizens.
Other exhibits currently under planning and construction include:
- Sandy Bottom and Schooling
- Magic Portal, which will visually link visitors at the Institute with visitors at the San Luis Obispo Historical Museum
- Underwater Exploration
- Paleontology
- Chumash culture
- Avila History
- Bat Ray Touch Tank
- And the Marine Classroom where many of the actual classes will be held
PO Box 460 (50 San Juan Street), Avila Beach, CA
(805) 595-7280 or info@avilamarineinstitute.com