Lee Bell wrote:
>
> Reef Fish wrote:
>
> > So, during the lull of house hunting, I paid my first visit to the
> > Chattanooga Aquarium...

> > The most impressive collection (to ME) was two TINY Hammerheads
> > which were dwarfed by the half-a-dozen or so Lookdowns, each of
> > which was at least TWICE the size of the hammerhead.  :-)  I don't
> > recall having seen any hammerheads in the better-known aquariums
> > such as the those in Boston, Chicago, San Diego, or Dallas.
>
> I don't even remember seeing them in the shark encounters at the San
> Diego or Orlando Sea Worlds.  Do you happen to recall what kind of
> hammerhead it was, Scalloped, Great, Smooth or Bonnethead?

As a former volunteer diver who used to feed in that exhibit, I can
speak with some authority on at least the *history* of the tank, but
since I haven't been there in a couple of years, I don't know their
current fishy population.

When it opened, the Tennessee Aquarium had (in shark terms) two nurse
sharks, about 5 feet, and 3 bonnethead sharks about 3 feet, maybe a tad
more.  The nurse sharks got bigger and were prone to the occasional
snack on a tank-mate; they were traded to Boston for a Russian
Sturgeon.  When I left they still had the three bonnetheads (which the
visitors invariably called a hammerhead), a half-dozen or so Southern
Stingrays, and one female cow-nosed ray.  They made a trade of
"something" to the aquarium just outside Morehead City NC (we went there
on a diving trip and were blown out by a hurricane offshore so we hit
the aquarium; the head aquarist was with us and knew the guy there) for
a small-ish loggerhead turtle (we had nothing outside of the fish family
in the tank before then).  Don't know if it's still there (Feeesh?), but
it used to be the only salt-water exhibit there
so it should have been visible.  They have added some smaller salt-water
exhibits though (jellyfish) and I've seen a moray on one of their ads,
we had neither when I was there.

There are (were) also a couple of good-sized tarpon and barracuda, but I
think that was about it for the big guys.  The look-downs were pretty
small, so I'm wondering if what Feeesh saw was either new acquisitions
(since he didn't mention the larger bonnetheads I remember) or if they
were successful in their husbandry efforts and those are the offspring
of the original bonnets.  I know the bonnets when I was there could
likely eat a lookdown, so I'm curious :-)

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>