Sunday, July 1, 2012

Geckos and their eyes, and more, at the Ft. Lauderdale Science Museum!!!

Today daughter, grandkids and I went down to the Ft. Lauderdale Science Museum. It has really upscaled itself, with many new exhibits, and virtual rides to somewhere!

One exhibit that was fantastic...was all about Geckos! Here was a huge wall of different eyes, which were so colorful and fascinating, I just had to have a picture!

Here are some of the varieties they had on display. A sort of freakish group of creatures, but yet, so alluring, you just can't help but be amazed and mesmerized by their beauty!






The one below was shedding his outer skin, and appeared to be eating it. You can see some of the old skin still on the tail area. At the rate the skin was coming off, it looked like within another 10 minutes, it would have been all gone!

I wish I had had more time to read some of the information about them, but with a 3 and 7 year old, we were on the move! Hopefully they will be around there for the summer...because it will be a destination for us on a hot summer day, when we just need to be indoors!

The Ft. Lauderdale SM had a new otter display as well, and the kids indoor play area there is fabulous. They can climb a tree, climb up a house structure and build walls within it, play computer games, do water play, make huge bubbles, and run an orange farm.

The other thing that was really cool, was the virtual air buggy ride through the Everglades! It was 4D! We had wind in our faces, and got sprayed with water as we rode...very cool. Believe it or not, it was Emily (3 years old) who enjoyed it so much, she had to go twice! She's a trooper!

I highly recommend this great science museum, if you are ever in the area. There is also an IMAX theater attached, so you can take in a movie while there as well.

13 comments:

  1. Ooh, cool! You know, leopard geckos (which a couple of your pics looked like) are supposed to be good first reptile pets for kids. Just sayin' :P

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  2. Now you know how likely that will be, Cindy!!! NO WAY!!! LOL.

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  3. Any day with nature in any way is a great day. Love those eyes.

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  4. Too cool!!! Mother Nature is super awesome, isn't she??? When I see a lizard at our place, I tell it...RUN!!! Run before the cats see you, run before the grands see you!!! RUN!!!!! (this would be a cool thing for my 4 yr old grand boy, he likes creeping things:)

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  5. What a cool museum, how fun for you and the kids to see the geckos and virtual ride through the Everglades!

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  6. Very interesting creatures. Fascinating. They're doing some interesting research here in Portland, Oregon (Lewis & Clark College, my alma mater), developing new kinds of glue (informally called "gecko glue")Super strong. (http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/public/chrn_geckopower.html.)

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  7. I love geckos. What a neat place to spend a day at.
    About my photos, I print them myself. I have a Kodak printer and notice that my photos come out much nicer using their High gloss "ultra" photo paper works really well. I have used their other two and it seem that my photos were not coming out as nice.
    Have a nice 4th.

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  8. Hi Julie *hugs*
    Fun...fun....I know you all lhad a great time. What a way to learn about new things...lizards and gechos are fun. That is a great outing and interesting that Emily was so good with the splash too..
    Hopefully you will be able to go back again...and finish up.
    have a good day today...hope its not tooooo hot and humid.
    Judi

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  10. Oh Julie I thought I was on Lynns blog. What a blond moment I had !Of course that must have been in Florida Yes Fort Lauderdale ......I got confused when I saw SFSM........
    Please erase that stupid comment.
    But once again love those Gekkos and especially that picture of those eyes!
    HAW♥

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  12. Marianne- I saw what you meant about those initials I had used...I think I was thinking SFSM=South Florida Science Museum, in my head, but of course that was WRONG!!! Sorry for the confusion, and I went ahead and changed it in the post. Thanks for pointing it out!!! :)

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  13. These pictures are fabulous! And the subjects are just beautiful! Ok, maybe I'm weird, but holy cow they are so cute! :)

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