The Podcast Aquatic

There are some animals that don’t deal well with change. Or rather, they seem to somehow avoid being touched by the passage of time like they’re role playing as Peter Pan or Dorian Gray. These lurkers on the edges of the evolutionary flow are what scientists have catchingly termed “living fossils.” One of the most well-known examples of being adverse-to-change are the lepisosteiformes, the taxonom...

Appalachia is an ancient place. That's a fact. Whether your roots in this part of the world run deep, you just moved here or you're merely passing through, the feeling of age in this rippled, time-worn landscape is palpable, especially when you find yourself traipsing off the trail. The animals that dwell in the deep lakes and far-flung hollers betwixt Appalachia's mountains have birthed many tall...

For a fish that first appeared alongside dinosaurs and survived the calamity that wiped them out, the Lake Sturgeon has had a hard last half-century in Tennessee. Once abundant in the state's waterways, wild Lake Sturgeon were last seen in Tennessee in 1963. In 1998, the Tennessee Aquarium was among the organizations that founded the Lake Sturgeon Working Group. Since then, the group members have...

To the general public, the acronym "AZA" might be largely meaningless, but in the zoo and aquarium world, it's associated with the gold standard by which all aspects of a zoological organization is measured, especially the animals' well being. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums was founded more than 100 years ago in 1924. It now comprises more than 9,000 individual members and has accredited mo...

From impossibly flexible, boneless bodies and mastery of camouflage to an over-abundance of brains and hearts, octopuses are like aliens come down from on high to boggle the minds of biologists. In this short-form, Mic Droplet episode of the podcast, the Aquarium’s resident octopus specialist helps celebrate World Octopus Day by ticking off a few of the most-noteworthy facts about these amazing ce...

When it comes to the most impressive migrations in the animal kingdom , there are a few obvious standouts: the pole-to-pole voyage of the Arctic Tern ; the horizon-spanning race of Wildebeests across the Serengeti; the bear-dodging spawning runs of Chinook Salmon . In the insect world, however, pretty much everything pales in comparison to the daunting voyage of Monarch Butterflies from Central Me...

It’s pretty much inarguable that sharks get a bad rap. In a given year, a handful of humans are bitten by sharks, and of these, an even smaller number result in serious injuries or fatalities. Flip the script, however, and sharks are far more likely to be the victims of "human attacks." Most data suggest about 100 MILLION sharks die each year due to intentional harvest, commercial by-cat...

At the Aquarium, we have animals of all sorts, from the beautiful and benign to graceful and powerful. Some of our residents could even, in some circumstances, be considered "dangerous." How, then, do you see to the needs of species whose adaptations present a serious risk to their caretakers? What tools do you need? What mindset do you have to adopt? In this episode, three caretakers of animals s...

Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors explore the galleries of the Tennessee Aquarium. The hope is that those experiences help guests to form a meaningful bond with the natural world and to better understand the importance of freshwater and how our behavior impacts it. That aim is the same for every guest, regardless of their sensory challenges or whether they are a person living with an i...

If you're ever in the wild and encounter an animal that looks ghost-like — pale skin, scales or fur — your immediate thought might be that this is an example of albinism. Look a little closer, though, and there may be some tell-tale signs that you've actually chanced on something different, if just as interesting. In our first-ever Mic Droplet , a shorter-format version of The Podcast Aqua...

Because many of the animals are on the other side of a layer of soundproof acrylic, exploring an aquarium is an experience that is intensely visual for most guests. Combined with the ever-increasing capabilities of the cameras in most phones, it's no surprise, then, that some of the most cherished souvenirs taken home by most visitors are selfies and snapshots. But what if you want to level up you...

From loss of habitat to collection to supply the pet and medicinal trade, turtles all over the world are in serious trouble. Fortunately, turtles have organizations like the Turtle Survival Alliance looking out for them. From its home in Charleston, South Carolina, to operations in more than 30 countries, the TSA is on the frontlines of breeding and protecting critically endangered turtles. They'r...

Invasive Lionfish have been a big problem in the Gulf for decades. These beautiful, venomous visitors from the Indopacific wreak havoc on native fish populations. A single female is capable of producing 50,000 eggs every three days for her entire life, and once grown, Lionfish lack any natural predators to keep their populations from spiraling out of control. Like many ecological conundrums, the p...

In this episode, meet two of the minds behind the design of the Aquarium’s many exhibits. Whether it’s prioritizing an animal’s wellbeing in its future home or ensuring a habitat has the best sightlines for guests, seeing an exhibit from an artistic concept to a walkable, explorable space is a lengthy one, if often as invisible as it is hugely important. Learn why the poison dart frog exhibit is o...

Whether it's dreams of feeding sharks, corralling seahorses or culturing jellyfish, many visitors to aquariums wonder what it's like to work at a zoological institution or ... more particularly ... how to get a job there themselves. In this episode Casey is joined in the Studio Dive Cage by a pair of Aquarium coworkers, one relatively new and one with more than 25 years under her belt, and a speci...

A Species Survival Plan (SSP) is a behind-the-scenes tool employed by zoos and aquariums to manage and promote the health of the entire population of a species in human care. By tracking genetics and making strategic decisions about where to move individuals in the interest of forming healthy breeding pairs, SSPs make top-down decisions in the interest of an entire species’ well-being. At the same...

Just in time for the summer travel season, this episode is a listener special, featuring answers to our fans' most-burning questions about our penguins, lemurs and river otters! To check in live with our penguins and otters, check out the Aquarium's always-streaming web cams: River Otter Falls Penguins' Rock Episode Cast Casey Phillips, show host and fellow otters/lemur/penguin stan Sam Grote, sen...

They come in all shapes and sizes, but aquatic macroinvertebrates represent an important component of the food webs in streams. Whether its damselfly nymphs, crayfish or web-spinning caddisflies, these spineless organisms are a fascinating group of animals that are easy to overlook in favor of larger, more traditionally charismatic animals like fish, salamanders and aquatic mammals. In this episod...

Plastic pollution is a beachside menace on shorelines all over our planet. With a literal garbage truck worth of this manufactured waste entering the ocean every minute, this can seem like problem with no end much less a solution. Fifteen years ago, Oregon-based artistic collective, Washed Ashore , found a more productive way to reuse plastic trash recovered from its coastline. By feeding this ers...

Like anything humans try to do beneath the surface, underwater filmmaking poses a slew of challenges beyond those of terrestrial videography. Few people understand that as well as Tim Geers, who has decades of experience filming aquatic productions bound for the largest of screens and the smallest. In addition to more than 20 years contributing to the Emmy Award-nominated web series, Jonathan Bird...

Considering it's one of the building blocks of life, it's ironic how dangerous water can be to the ill-equipped. And when it comes to deep water, humans are about as under-prepared for survival as it's possible to be.   Fortunately, despite our pitiful lung capacity and lack of fins, we're blessed with a heap of curiosity and ingenuity, which has given rise over the millennia to a variety of metho...

The world's smallest sturgeon species, the Syr Darya Shovelnose Sturgeon, is found in muddy rivers flowing through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia. It tops out at a diminutive 9 inches long. But the thing is, it hasn't been seen in more than 60 years. In this episode of the podcast, two of our scientists, Dr. Bernie Kuhajda and Dr. Dave Neely, and graduate student Christian...

In the early 2000s, the Tennessee Aquarium was closing out its first decade on the river with plans underway for a major expansion: the Ocean Journey building. At the same time, two other nearby institutions were in the midst of their own major expansions. The three joined forces, under the leadership of former U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (then mayor of Chattanooga) to embark on a combined campaign for f...

After eight years under the leadership of former president & CEO, Keith Sanford, the Tennessee Aquarium has welcomed a new chief executive: Andy Wood. With more than 14 years of leadership experience at the Florida Aquarium and Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, Wood is bringing a wealth of knowledge of the zoo and aquarium world to bear in his new role. In this episode, we get to know a lot more...

From much-maligned pigeons and purportedly "wise" owls to noble raptors and cereal hawking toucans, birds are one of the world's most diverse, widespread class of animals. To many of us, birds are so much a part of our lives that we often fail to notice or appreciate them. Such is definitely not the case for the special guest of this episode, the Aquarium's curator of forests, Kevin Calhoon. In th...