1. -where science makes a splash

2.  The Atlantaquaria is located in Salthill looking out onto Galway Bay.  The river that flows through Galway is called the Corrib. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean.  Galway Atlantaquria Map Galway Atlantaquria Map

3.  As Ireland’s National Aquarium, we are home to the country’s largest display of marine and fresh water life.  We will now look at some of the fish life we will see there.

4.  Starfish is also known as a Sea Star.  Sea stars have no brains and no blood.  Starfish can re-grow parts of their body so they do not die if they lose a leg.  It likes to eat mussels.

5.  Crabs are 10-legged animals that walk sideways.  Most crabs live in the oceans, but many, like the robber crab, live on land.  Crabs are invertebrates, animals without a backbone.  They have an exoskeleton (also called a carapace), an outer shell that both protects them from predators and provides support.

6.  The Lesser Spotted Dogfish is Ireland ’s smallest and commonest Shark!  It is an incredibly laid back, lazy animal, and spends up to 23 hours each day simply sitting, resting on the sea-bed!  They are given the nick-name “Blind Dog” by fishermen due to their terrible eyesight.

7.  Although Sea Anemones look like flowers, they are predatory animals.  These invertebrates have no skeleton at all.  They live attached to firm objects in the seas, usually the sea floor, rock, or coral, but they can slide around very slowly.

8.  The Cuttlefish, a close relative of the Squid and the Octopus. It eats crabs.  It spends most of its day resting, semi-buried, in the sea-bed, where it is able to change its colour to blend in almost perfectly with its surroundings.  The Cuttlefish’s fantastic ability to camouflage itself is its key defence technique: it can change the entire colour of its skin within a second!  But, like the Octopus and Squid, it can also squirt out thick black ink to confuse any predator which does spot it.

9.  Lobsters are animals that have a tough shell and live on the ocean floor.  Lobsters are invertebrates, animals without a backbone.  Lobsters are cold-blooded; their body temperature depends on the temperature of the water.  Lobsters are carnivores (meat-eaters). With very strong claws.

10.  The word octopus means "eight feet."  An octopus has a soft body and eight arms.  Each arm has two rows of suction cups.  If it loses an arm, it will eventually regrow another arm.  It has blue blood.  An octopus has an eye on each side of its head and has very good eyesight.  An octopus cannot hear.  In order to escape predators, octopuses can squirt black ink into the water, allowing the octopus to escape.

11.  The sea urchin is a spiny, hard-shelled animal that lives on the rocky seafloor, from shallow waters to great depths.  Many sea urchins have venomous spines.  Sea urchins do not have a brain.

12.  The hermit crab is a type of crab that doesn't have a very hard shell.  It uses other animals' old shells for protection; they especially like old sea snail shells.  As the hermit crab grows in size, it must find a larger shell.  Most hermit crab species live on the ocean floor, but many live on land.

13.  The Conger Eel is Atlantaquaria’s largest inhabitant.  The largest Congers are all females; males don’t grow to more than a few kilos weight.  A baby eel is called an elver.  Conger eels like to eat herring.

14.  The Trigger fish is one of the most unusual fish found in Irish waters.  It is essentially a warm water fish, found mostly round the tropics and in the Mediterranean, but every summer, thousands of them head north to Irish waters to feed on prey like prawns.

15.  Watch out for all of us in the aquarium.