Elad’s blog

From the aquarium I went to the museum of natural history, which hides under the name ‘Australia Museum’. It is a big building, with three floors. The first hosts skeletons, the second hosts minerals, and the third - most interesting- holds stuffed animals and fossils, as well as models of dinosaurs and some other extinct creatures. Actually, after the aquarium I wasn’t too impressed with this museum, but I did grab there some interesting insights. For example, I never noticed that a dinosaur had so many vertebraes in its tail, or that the bones of a bird are so fragile and light compared to those of a reptile (I theoretically knew that, but looking at the bones is completely different). I also got a nice close look to some of the animals that extincted in Australia some 11,000 years ago (the main reason the Aboriginals never evolved out of stone-age is that they never developed agriculture. This probably happened because there weren’t good enough plants or any big mammals in native Australia; and this is probably closely related to mass extinctions that killed all of Australia’s big mammals some 11,000 years ago. I’ll write more about that on a different time).
I learned that the oldest evidence to the presence of man in Australia was not skeletons or bones - it was the existence of stone knives, found at an archaeological site here. The knives are dated to some 2,000 years prior to the first bone that was found - this does enable a suspicious mind to develop a conspiracy theory, doesn’t it?

After I finished the museum, I decided to walk back rather than take a bus. It is quite a walk, because my hostel is really far from the city center, but it stopped raining and I really enjoyed the walk. On the way I bought myself fish’n'chips, which is most common food here, and just eaten while walking. It was really nice. Now I’ll go to a supermarket to buy some things, and than back to the hotel to find something to do in the evening.
Since I can’t buy the car until I get the money, tomorrow will probably also be devoted to some nice city aspect - probably art galleries if it will rain, or perhaps city parks if the weather is good. I also noticed a dive center here, but this will surely wait until the storm is over and maybe until my next arrival to Sydney.
At the mean time, just have a look at a typical australian waiting for the storm to end:

First there were plants. Then, there were invertebraes and the world was ruled by marine worms.

And some 400 milion years ago the cartilage-fish were created.

Older than any bony fish, much older than any reptile, mammal or a bird, the sharks rule the oceans for 400 milion years. Quite a period.
And through all those years, they continued to evolve and to adopt to their environment, until nowadays probably no living animal can compete with them when it comes for adaptation.
Take, for example, their six senses: sight - 10 times better than a cat’s. hearing - over a kilometer in the open ocean. Not to mention taste, feel, smell and of course - electromagnetism, the sixth sense of a shark . They have much more interesting features, though. For example, the skin of a shark is not covered with KASKASIM, like a normal fish. Rather, sharks have dentricles - tiny tooth-shaped organs, covering their bodies and making their skin very rough (actually, in ancient china people were using shark’s skin instead of glossy paper for their woodcrafts). Or their liver. The most important thing for any fish is not to drawn (fish always face the risk of being crushed to the sea-floor and be smashed by the pressure of water if they go too deep). Most fish have this organ, a ‘bouyant gland’ which is full of air and keeps them in neutral bouyant. Most fish - but not sharks. They have an amazingly huge liver, that takes up to 90% of their belly volume, and they can produce in it special oil that is lighter than water and keeps them in exactly the right depth. Very sophisticated.
All this shark info is not present at Sydney’s oceanarium. There, they simply show you plenty of sharks. Here are a few examples:

Actually, of the 400 species of sharks, only 4 are really dangerous for man. I wander if I’ll ever see one of them. Meanwhile, I was just watching the sharks.

Another extremely interesting animal in the aquarium is the platipus (BARVAZAN). Considered taboo by the aboriginals, this rare mammal (who lay eggs, and acts like the wierdest combination between fish and bird) is actually so wierd that they did put some explanation about it on the aquarium (after all, it’s not a common shark). For example, it has double-layered fur, which is water repellent and keep its skin dry when it dives. But the most interesting feature is that when the platipus dives, it closes its eyes (so they won’t get wet), shuts its nostrlis and ears, and rely for his pray only on - you guessed right - electromagnetism. The platipus actually feels the electric pulses created by the heartbeats of the fish and crabs it is eating, and it is praying based on this sense alone. And it had succesfully done so for thousands of years!

Beside these animals there are plenty of marine creatures there. From cold sea fish (Did you know that fish in Antarctica has antifreeze fluid in their blood, and survive at water as cold as 3 degrees?) to coral marine life, and even some other things - like seals and small penguins. There’s even a crocodile with a funny sign on the top of its pool:

I spent in the aquarium the first half of the day. It was raining outside - but the aquarium is all covered, so it was really nice and I really, really, enjoyed it. I am already looking forward to diving here. The next half of the day I continued my exploration on Australia’s animals, by visiting the ‘Australia museum’, which is actually a natural-history museum. About this visit - see the next post.