A Few Staff Animal Photos

Here at The Jungle Store we have a great love for all animals, ok maybe not spiders, and that means we love taking photos of animals. Here are a few photos our staff have taken from their trips all over the country.

This photo was taken at Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary located in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The sanctuary is home to over 600 wild mustangs which have been named America's Luckiest Wild Horses. They offer a variety of tours that can last from two hours to three days, you can even reserve a cabin.

These photos were taken at the Albuquerque BioPark Aquarium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The aquarium is part of the Biopark which includes a zoo and botanical garden right next to the Rio Grande.

These photos were taken at the Kansas City Zoo located in Kansas City, Missouri. The zoo opened in 1909 and is now spread across 202 acres. In the fall of 2013 the Kansas City Zoo opened its penguin plaza with interactive learning stations and panoramic viewing windows. The zoo is also planning to add a tiger trail, orangutan canopy and giraffe feeding station in the years to come.

The Flowerhorn Fish

Say there, what's that on your head? This is the Flowerhorn fish, which gets its name from its distinctive, and colorful, head bump.

The Flowerhorn is a fish hybrid that is not found in nature. These man-made creatures were developed in Malaysia in 1993 and are sold for aquariums. When cared for correctly, the Flowerhorn can live for 10 to 12 years.

The Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium Review

We're wrapping up our coverage of our visit to the Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium! Today we wanted to give you a rundown of the features and exhibits that we fell in love with, the ones that will absolutely keep us going back to the aquarium time and again.

1) The touch pond. This one should be pretty self explanatory, because, really, how many chances do you get to touch a star fish? Or a spiny urchin or a limpit? It was also funny to see the difference in the ways people approached the touch pond - some dove their hands right in to pick up and feel every creature while others were more hesitant to put their hand in the water.

2) The jellyfish tank. We talked about this in our Wednesday post, but the jellyfish tank really was one of the coolest things we've seen. It just sucked you right in, with the lights and the soft music playing in that section. The jellyfish looked so etheral, just floating there. Really and truly, we would have spent hours just staring at that exhibit if we could have.

3) The underwater tunnel. There were multiple reasons why we loved this part of the aquarium  For one, having the fish swim over and around you reminded us of how it feels to go snorkeling or scuba diving (and gave us a craving to back into the sea)! Two, it's fun to see the fish from below, rather than just from the side or above as with many aquarium tanks. And three, even though there was thick glass between us and the fish, it felt like we were really close to them. One of the best parts of our trip was taking pictures of a manta ray and then turning around to see a shark swim right by our faces!

So there you have it, a few of the things we absolutely loved about the Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium. Have you convinced you to visit it yet? If so, you can buy your tickets here.

Sea Life Fin Facts

Since we're featuring the Kansas City Sea Life Aqaurium on the blog this week, we thought we'd share with you some of the "Fin Facts" we learned during our visit!

Fin Fact #1

Did you know that spiny lobsters have been known to cross the ocean floor in long, single-files lines?

Fin Fact #2

The spiky fins on the lionfish's back are pretty, but also dangerous! The fins are venomous and give a nasty sting!

Fin Fact #3

The scientific name for the sea horse is "hippocampus." Hippo means "horse" and campus means "sea monster."

Pic Of The Week - Jellyfish In Space

This week's picture is one we took while visiting the Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium. It's a view of the jellyfish tank there, which we literally could have stared at for hours! It was so hypnotizing, and peaceful. The title of this post comes from the little white specks floating with the jellyfish... it really did seem like they were drifting along in outer space.

The colors you see are coming from the colored lights along the exhibit. They ranged from white to red to blue. It was a fun touch, we thought. Normally we only do one picture for our Pic Of The Week posts, but we had too many great jellyfish shots we wanted to share. Enjoy!

Apologies for the large image sizes, but going any smaller just didnt' do these pictures justice! To read our review of the Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium, click here.



The Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium

Last week, we finally had the opportunity to visit one of Kansas City’s newest attractions, the Sea Life Aquaruim. And let us tell you, we were impressed (and are already planning for our next trip there)!

One thing that jumped out at us was the easy way that the aquarium blended learning with entertainment. There were “Fin Facts” splashed against many of the walls, teaching visitors things like that the lion fish has a venomous spine on its dorsal fin. There were other displays that showed, rather than told, the facts, like the one with life-sized crab images on it. The images went from the pea crab (aptly named since it is the size of a pea) to the gigantic (and somewhat horrific) Japanese spider crab that grow up to 13 feet in diameter!

The sea life aquarium also does a great job of mixing up the displays. It’s not just a bunch of fish behind glass. There’s that, but there’s also a touch pond where visitors are welcomed to touch star fish, hermit crabs and spiny urchins. There are displays that have special designs so visitors can actually stick their heads inside "bubbles" inside the aquarium.


One of the star fish in the touch pond.

Overall, we were VERY impressed, captivated, entertained and educated by the Sea Life Aquarium and we’re very glad we splurged on the season pass*! This way we can go back all year long to bring our readers (and Facebook fans and Pinterest followers) more great pictures all year long!

*If you live in Kansas City and are considering a trip to the aquarium, definitely check into the annual pass. Price for an individual ticket for the day was about $26, and the price for an individual year pass was $60 (both including tax). If you want to go more than once (and you will) or have a bigger family, it makes sense to get the annual pass.