identification is fun.

Older Foreign Lady: These sea animals?
Employee: Yes... [unsure, forced smile]

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A 70's-ish woman is standing with her daughter, pointing at various animals as they swim by.

Woman: [points] Ooh! A shark! [points] Ooh! A Turtle! [points to large school of fish] Are those real?

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Our "African" exhibit features hippos, dozens of free-flying birds, and an African Crested Porcupine, which hides behind a log (it's nocturnal), has 3-foot quills, and weighs about 40 pounds.

Woman: [points at porcupine] Ooh! Look at that big bird!

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At Touch-A-Shark

Woman: These alligators?

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The aquarium is full of interactive things for small kids- buttons to push and levers to pull. One such exhibit requires that you push a red button. Doing this lights up a picture of a Foxface Rabbitfish, which is venomous. In the picture, the Rabbitfish has hypodermic needles in its body, pointing out through its fin spines, to show you that its spines and venom sacs function like a needle injection.

6-year-old boy: [pushes button] Look! Drugs!
The boy pulls on his chaperone's sleeve and gets her to push the button.
Chaperone: Yep, Drugs!

Sharks: big, stinky, beefy, feline.

The aquarium features a big, fake, great white shark hanging from the ceiling. It's about 15 feet long.

Little Girl: [pointing] How old is that shark?
Employee: It's actually just a fake shark.
Little Girl: 30 minutes long!
Employee: You mean how long is the shark? I don't know, but it's big!
Little Girl: 30 minutes!

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At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Will they smell like fish if I touch them?
Me: Will they smell like fish if you touch them?
Woman: Yeah.
Me: ...no?

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At Touch-A-Shark:

High School Girl: You feed the sharks steak?
Employee: Steak? Did you say steak?
HSG: Well, I didn't know if you fed them meat, or just, like, fish....
Employee: We feed them fish, which is still meat....
HSG: [blank stare] Ya never know!

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At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Are these really sharks or are they catfish?
Employee: Uh, they're definitely sharks, I promise.

mermaids, back-breathing, and whales.

A woman approaches, her kids are slightly out of earshot. She's dead serious.

Woman: Excuse me, do you have mermaids?
Employee: What?
Woman: Do you have Atlantic mermaids?
Employee: Um... no?
Woman: Oh. [To kids] Sorry guys, I really wanted you to see what a real mermaid looked like.

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Man seeing bubbles come out from under a penguin's thick feathers underwater: Hey! Do they breathe out of their backs?

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A man with a thick Indian accent:

Man: You have big whale last time! Big whale!
Employee: Sir, we actually don't have whales here. Maybe you saw our large sharks?
Man: Yes. [Smiles] Big whale.
Employee: No whales.
Man: So big, the whales.

a cute one.

There is one biologist at the aquarium in charge of culturing (growing) and caring for the jellyfish. We have three windows, side by side, that show the three main stages of jellyfish development. The biologist was showing a little girl the window containing the very young jellies, and then moved over to the window showing the even younger, first-stage jellies.

Biologist: [pointing to the exhibit] And this is where the baby jellyfish come from!
Little Girl: Is that the hospital?

recognizing shark species.

At Touch-A-Shark:

Woman: Are these sharks going to get bigger?
Me: These sharks are juveniles, so they're going to jet just a little bit bigger.
Woman: Oh, Juveniles. Is that what kind they are?


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Also at Touch-A-Shark:
Little Asian Boy: [Points at Smooth Dogfish shark] Those... those sharks... th... they weird me out... [uses fingers to give himself slanty eyes] because they're Asian.

snacktime.

The other day, I watched a family of three (father, mother, child) sit down on a bench in the aquarium, open a plastic bag, remove three small ears of corn on the cob, and eat them as a snack.

sleeping whales, trick sharks, and man-eaters.

Woman, running inside after seeing a seal sitting at the bottom of the tank at the clearly labeled "Seal Shores" exhibit: I think there's something wrong with one of your whales!

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In the Shark exhibit, just before a shark talk.

Man: Is this a show where they're going to be doing jumps and flips and stuff?
Me: No, sir. You're thinking of dolphins. These are sharks.
Man: So these don't do that?
Me: No.

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For some reason, I thought that the general public had learned by now that sharks are not "man eaters" that are "out to get us." Oh well.

At touch-a-shark (which contains 3-foot, bottom-feeding sharks)

Woman: We can touch these?
Me: Yep. This is touch-a-shark.
Woman: They're sharks! They'll bite!
Me: No, not all animals bite. Not all dogs bite, right? These guys just bite their food.
Woman: Well, we're food for them, right?
Me: No... [I go on to explain how that's a misconception, sharks eat fish, etc.]
Woman: Wow! You learn something new every day!