The Houston Museum of Natural Science was a very entertaining and educational

experience for me. The museum had plenty of things to see and learn about during the five hours

I was there. Some of the places I visited in the museum was the gem hall, butterfly exhibit,

paleontology hall, and a place I got to touch and learn about live sharks. We also saw a movie in

the planetarium called “The Fate of the Maya”.

The exhibit where we were able to touch a live shark was a very exciting and educational

one. The sharks there for us to touch was a species called the bamboo shark. The reason the

bamboo shark was there and not a different species is because it is naturally docile. We were also

informed that the shark has a ventral mouth. We also got to go onto a computer database and see

all of the sharks that had been tagged and where they have gone recently. I was surprised to see

how many were off the coasts of the United States. I was also surprised to see how far the sharks

had traveled.

The gem hall was filled with beautiful artifacts and colorful gems. We saw many gems

like the stibnite crystals, opal, ruby, topaz, and sapphire. We also saw artifacts like a huge green

vase and a crown.

The butterfly exhibit was very educational and interactive. The actual walk through the

garden with the butterflies was amazing. Since we had a field guide with the different types of

butterflies that we were supposed to see, we figured out that we saw types of butterflies such as

longwings and swallowtails. We also saw specific butterflies such as the tiger monarch, purple

owlet, lacewing, and red peacock. We also learned about how there are bugs in the foods we eat!

It came as a shock to me because many of the foods I learned had bugs in them were ones I ate

regularly. We learned that chocolate can contain thirty-five insect fragments in a 1.5 ounce bar,

tomato paste may contain twenty fly eggs or two maggots per four ounce can, and flour is

allowed up to 3400 insect parts in a five pound bag. That seemed very gross to me, especially the

amount of insects allowed in the flour, but I learned that the reason we find that gross is we do

not think of that as normal in our culture. I learned that there are other cultures in other parts of

the world that would not be bothered by bugs in their food.

In my opinion, the hall of paleontology was the most interesting exhibit we visited at the

museum. We learned many facts about prehistoric beasts that I found fascinating. We learned

that the trilobites during the Cambrian period ad much thinner armor than the trilobites during

the Ordovician period, which proved that the trilobites evolved to be more suited to the harsh

environment they were living in. Another adaptation the trilobites had was their eyes. Some had

eyes at the end of long stalks, while others were completely blind. Another type of creature I

found to be interesting were the coelacanths. They were muscular relatives of lung fish and the

inspiration for the horror film, “Creature from the Black Lagoon”. The most interesting thing I

learned about the coelacanths was that they were rediscovered in 1938 after thought to be extinct.

I also found the deinonychus to be very interesting because it was also an inspiration for a classic

film. This beast was the inspiration for the classic film “Jurassic Park”. I learned that the

deinonychus was very smart and worked with others well. They had sharp teeth but were too

small to kill big prey. However, they did have an enlarged claw mounted on their hind foot that

was their main weapon. The final beast I found extremely scary but also interesting. The

megalodon was referred to as the “king of the sharks”. It was twice as long as the largest known

great white and ate whales, elephants, mastodons, and mammoths.

We also saw a film in the planetarium called “Fate of the Maya”. It was about Mayan

history and how they used astronomy to predict when rains would come. I learned that the

Mayans used the movements of Venus to predict when the rain would come. They did not know

what the movements of Venus was so they referred to them as a serpent god. I also learned that

at a point in their history, a volcano erupted and disrupted the weather patterns.

RESEARCH:

The bamboo shark is commonly found on inshore coral reefs and is a generally solitary

animal. This shark is a nocturnal feeder and is also often observed in tidal pools. The maximum

reported size of the bamboo shark is forty-one inches, while most range from twenty-five to

thirty inches. The diet of the bamboo shark consists of crabs, shrimps, and small fish. Its

predators include larger sharks and other marine mammals. This shark is considered harmless to

humans but may nip divers if provoked. The bamboo shark is classified as near threatened on the

IUCN Red List, which deals with extinction.

SOURCES:

Carpenter, Kent E., Casal, Christine Marie V. Chiloscyllium punctatum Brownbanded

bambooshark. Retrieved from http://www.fishbase.se/summary/5903#comment.

Bester, Cathleen. FLMNH Ichthyology Department: Brownbanded bambooshark. Retrieved from

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/Bbambooshark/bbambooshark.html.