Gumbo Limbo

[Haus]

We’re down in Florida for the holiday weekend and came across a very cool place I thought I’d share-the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. A highlight of the place is a sea turtle rehab facility for injured/sick turtles that are found along the Florida shore. Florida Atlantic University also runs a sea turtle hatchery there.

Other attractions are four large habitat-specific aquariums, including a deep reef and a deep wreck, and a shallow reef and a mangrove area. Not much in terms of corals but the tanks are inhabited by indigenous species. There’s also a butterfly garden.

We were there for feeding time, when among other things the instructor told everyone that 90% or more of the sand off the Florida coast (and in some places 100%) comes from rock that parrotfish eat when they’re grazing, and it digests and then gets pooped out as sand. My son kept telling my daughters and wife they were stepping in poop every time they stepped on sand, and when they jumped away he yelled “parrotfish poop!” in a ball of laughter.

Here’s some pictures of the hatchery, hospital, seahorse tank, ricordea tank, and a scrawled filefish that was really cool.