-where science makes a splash

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Watch out for all of us in the aquarium.