Construction Projects Happening at Gulf Specimen |
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Our previously proposed Anne Rudloe Education Center can no longer be built from scratch as a result of the high costs of construction due to COVID-19. Instead, GSML has decided to remodel a home that will be turned into our new education center! This property is located across the street from Gulf Specimen Marine Lab with a beautiful water front view. This location will be a perfect destination for our summer camp and other educational opportunities as it will feature many classroom settings. This center will allow us to offer education beyond the classroom! |
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We would like to thank the Volunteer Florida Foundation for providing GSML with the FDF grant that made the construction on our parking lot possible. We were able to improve our previous parking lot to ensure that it now has handicapped accessible parking as well as parking spots for school buses. The parking lot also features new fiber glass models including, a life sized dolphin, goliath grouper and a green sea turtle. We are currently working with a landscape designer to incorporate low maintenance native plants to the parking lot. The once grass and sand covered land is now a suitable parking lot for all! |
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 | BEFORE Prior to the construction project this was the appearance of the majority of our parking lot. The land was covered by grass, dirt and sand, and individual parking spots were not clearly outlined. |
| | | AFTER Now, after weeks of construction, our parking lot has individual parking spots with parking blocks. We also have two handicapped parking spots adjacent to a concrete ramp that connects to our aquarium. |
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During the beginning of the global pandemic there were very limited internship opportunities across the nation. As a result, we noticed a vast change in where the interns that applied to our aquarist internships were coming from. Originally the majority of our interns were FSU students, but now we had interns applying from all over the country. This created a need for us to offer housing to interns from out of town in a city that did not offer enough housing at an affordable price. The majority of properties near our facility are beachfront coastal properties that are constantly being rented out by tourists. From a donor we were able to construct a dormitory from an existing structure at GSML. We were able to secure a piece of property that would house 2 interns on-site throughout the duration of their internship. Renovations have begun, so we can have it ready for occupancy during the Fall semester! |
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The Sea Mobile Is Finally Back! |
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| After nearly 2 years of being off the road due to damages from Hurricane Michael and closures due to Covid-19, we are happy to announce that the Sea Mobile is finally back on the road!
This is our traveling aquarium that is self-sustained and able to house a wide variety of live marine life so that we can bring the aquarium to your school, festival, birthday party, or other special event. The Sea Mobile holds 450 gallons of saltwater aquariums including 5 touch tanks with starfish, sea urchins, conchs, crabs, sponges and a variety of other interesting and colorful sea life from the Gulf of Mexico. All of these species are safe for children to pick up and handle. This mobile aquarium also contains, 7 acrylic aquariums filled with a variety of crabs, bony fish and invertebrates from the Gulf of Mexico. There are also 2 Blue ray players hooked to the televisions on our Sea Mobile so that we can play informational videos for the children viewing our critters.
If you want to bring the Sea Mobile to you contact us by calling us at (850) 984-5297 or emailing us at gspecimen@sprintmail.com |
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NEW! Sea Turtle Educational And Interactive Exhibit |
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Gulf Specimen Marine Lab is developing and displaying nine new educational signs on the sea turtles of Florida, enabling visitors to learn more about these species and the threats they face. We received a grant from the Sea Turtle Conservancy to replace our current signs that have been damaged due to weathering. The nine signs will include sea turtle species profiles which will provide information on the average length and weight of sea turtles as well as their, diet, habitat and distribution. This will allow visitors to compare and contrast the differences across various species of sea turtles.
This exhibit will include an interactive exhibit called the "Sea Turtle Survival Wheel of Fortune." This wheel will provide information to visitors about sea turtle hatchling survival. This interactive wheel will contain a fiberglass sea turtle model as the spinner and contain eight sections. These sections will contain sea turtles favorite prey or various threats turtles face letting visitors know if their hatchling will survive and thrive. |
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Artist rendition of our Sea Turtle Wheel of Fortune interactive exhibit: |
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Meet Our Newest Summer 2021 Interns:
Every semester, Gulf Specimen offers a unique college internship program. This program has helped many young college students experience on-the-job type training that explores the field of biological supply, aquarium husbandry, sea turtle rehabilitation and marine life education.
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Erika is an upcoming fourth year student at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, working on her bachelors in Biology and masters in Environmental Science. She has had a passion for marine biology since she was little, but never really had a chance to study or interact with marine animals until interning at Gulf Specimen Marine Lab. Her favorite part about being an intern is interacting with guests and informing them about the creatures in the lab. Her favorite specimens here are the sea pansies, green wrasse, cowfish, and our resident loggerhead sea turtle. Erika is unsure of what she wants to do in the future, but after working at the lab, she has become more interested with work done in aquariums and zoos. |
| Kylee Lindsey is a recent graduate from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg with a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology and a minor in Journalism. She has been in love with the ocean ever since getting scuba certified at 13. Since then she has fulfilled her passion of becoming a divemaster to spend as much time under the water as possible. Throughout college, she has had experiences through school to further study marine science but absolutely loves the opportunities that Gulf Specimen Marine Lab provides. “My favorite part about working at the lab is being able to go out into the field and collect specimens for the lab or orders,” Kylee said. She hopes to use her degree and experience to continue working hands-on with marine animals while also incorporating her love for writing. |
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Wonders of the Gulf: Creature Feature |
| North Florida is gifted with an amazing array of diverse animals where we find fascinating creatures. Our exhibits change every season. |
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Florida Regal Sea Goddess Femilare picta
This beautiful creature has a dark blue coloration with striking yellow circles. The Regal Goddess is a nudibranch, a shell-less mollusks, and part of the sea slug family. Nudibranchs derive their bright coloring from the food they eat, which includes algae, sponges, anemones and other nudibranchs. Nudibranchs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, which allows them to mate with any other mature member of their species. |
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Southern Stingray Dasyatis americana Southern Stingrays can be found found as far south as the coast of Brazil, but are commonly found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Female southern stingrays grow much larger than males having a 6-foot span while males have a 2.5-foot span. Stingrays are known for their stingers, but they are actually very docile creatures. When not feeding, southern stingrays bury themselves in the sand with only their eyes and spiracles visible. |
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