Florida Day 4 - Residents of the Mote Marine Lab

Hello! I am a Burrfish!

What a face, right? 

Day 4 of our January trip to Florida was another chilly one, so we decided to head north again for a visit to the Mote Marine Lab near Sarasota. This place had been mentioned favorably by my friends who live on Anna Maria Island when we'd visited them a couple of days earlier. I think they'd mentioned it during my 2019 visit to them as well because I'd already had it in mind as someplace that might be interesting; I wasn't going to push for it but when others mentioned it I seconded the idea quickly.

The Lab was named after William Mote, a successful Sarasota businessman who loved fishing and the sea, who started supporting it in the 1960's. The lab had been opened as the Cape Haze Marine Life in Placida, Florida, in 1955 under the leadership of Dr. Eugenie Clark; under her (yes, HER, yes, in 1955, how cool is that? she must have worked so hard), the facility became noted for shark research, and that continues to be one of the things for which they're still noted today.* In fact one of my favorite exhibits there was an interactive one about how scientists use tags of various sorts to collect data about the movements and behavior of sharks and other animals. There were more different kinds of tags than I could've imagined, and then the fun interactive component was a large display screen showing the Ocearch marine animal tracker, where you can click on icons representing tagged sharks, whales, seals, sea turtles, and even alligators, seeing what kind each one is and where it's been.

It's not as shiny and fancy as some aquariums I've been to - somewhere on their website, though, they said that that's not what they're after, they're focused on the research and education. They had a really good range of exhibits and animals and lots of interesting information about the local marine environment. Unfortunately their manatee habitat had just been closed for renovations; this was the 2nd close miss for manatees, my Anna Maria Island friends had taken us somewhere where there had been manatees days earlier, but they weren't there. But we did enjoy seeing what Mote had to offer. As always, click on any photo for a better view. 

Sea zucchini!

Nah, nah, nah, just kidding. There's actually a sea cucumber in the grass, and they must like zucchini.

ENORMOUS spiny lobster

Seahorse. They had an interesting exhibit called "Oh Baby!", which gave information about how various sea creatures reproduce and care for (or don't care for) their young - I don't think this one was part of that exhibit but seahorses were of course featured, with the fathers who actually incubate and hatch their eggs in their brood pouches.

Guitar fish! This friendly fish was in an outdoor touch tank that had a deeper section in the center where any of the rays that didn't feel like interacting could go for a little alone time. Most of the rays in the tank were there but this guy was actually swimming around the edge and sticking his nose out of the water.


Shark! And some tarpon, a prized Florida game fish nicknamed "The Silver King". Handsome fish. These were in the largest of the outdoor tanks in the first of the 2 buildings. Once you were done here, you walked over to the 2nd.

Wyland wall on the outside of one of the 2 main buildings. This is where the manatees are when they're there.

In addition to shark research, Mote does a lot of turtle conservation work, and they have a turtle hospital where injured sea turtles from tiny hatchlings up to enormous adults are cared for.

They release as many as they can - 

but some end up not being able to go, like Squirt 2, who was badly injured by a boat propeller.

I think our favorite exhibit was the otters, though. They had a really nice big exhibit with a waterfall for sliding and rafts. The otters were all swimming around when we got there - 

which turned out to be just in time for feeding time. The otters, who are also all anim had some husbandry behaviors they've been trained to do, and dinnertime is reinforcement time. Maybe I'm projecting but they really seemed to enjoy this - they had an air of eager attentiveness, and nobody ever broke ranks to try to steal anyone else's goodies - and then after the session was over they all ended up playing with each other with so much enthusiasm, like they were still excited from the fun with their keeper. 

So all in all, another nice day!

Mote is closed for the pandemic, but like so many other places, they are still sharing the animals with live webcams and also special "ReMote" happy hours!

*History notes from an expanded version of the history page available in a PDF on that page.