Download Redaktion - Meeresmuseum

Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
Manuskript
Text und Redaktion: Sabine Schiller M.A.
Textgrundlagen: Dr. Sabine Brasse, Dr. Harald Benke
Regie:
Sprecher: Dr. Harald Benke (Kapitel 01; 30)
Übersetzung:
Studio: Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Meinolf Büttner
Kontakt Auftraggeber: Dr. Sabine Brasse (03831 2650-640; 0173 96 88 289)
Länge: ca. 66 Min.
Medium: SmartGuide HD
Freigabe: 02.09.2014
Inhalt
01 Welcome! (Dr. Harald Benke) ........................................................................................... 2
02 Ocean .............................................................................................................................. 4
03 Deep Sea Angler, Siphonophore ...................................................................................... 6
04 Cockles and Bass ............................................................................................................. 8
05 Collecting – A Museum’s Task ........................................................................................10
06 Baltic Sea Relief ..............................................................................................................11
07 Plankton ..........................................................................................................................13
08 Porpoises ........................................................................................................................14
09 White-Tailed Sea Eagle ...................................................................................................15
10 Grey Seal ........................................................................................................................16
11 Baltic Sea Aquaria – Introduction.....................................................................................17
12 Harbour Basin .................................................................................................................18
13 Chalk Coast .....................................................................................................................19
14 Open Baltic Sea – Herrings .............................................................................................21
15 Kattegat ...........................................................................................................................22
16 Exploration and Use – introduction ..................................................................................24
17 Deep-Sea Treasures .......................................................................................................25
18 „Population Census“ – Diversity of Marine Species .........................................................26
19 Over Fishing ....................................................................................................................27
20 North Sea – Wadden Sea ................................................................................................29
21 Heligoland .......................................................................................................................30
22 Surge Coastline ...............................................................................................................31
23 Deep Sea – Cold Water Corals .......................................................................................32
24 Open Atlantic ...................................................................................................................34
25 Penguins – Roof Terrace .................................................................................................36
26 Marine Giants – Introduction............................................................................................38
27 Fish of the Past and of Today ..........................................................................................40
28 By catch and Counter ......................................................................................................41
29 Giant Squid .....................................................................................................................43
30 Auf Wiedersehen! (Dr. Harald Benke) .............................................................................45
1
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
01 Welcome! (Dr. Harald Benke)
Bild:
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Harald Benke. As director of the
Stiftung Deutsches Meeresmuseum, the German Oceanographic
Museum Foundation, and on behalf of my colleagues here, I would
like to extend you a warm welcome to the OZEANEUM Stralsund!
Here on the Stralsund Harbour Peninsula, we’d like to accompany
you on a fascinating tour of the underwater sea world. In five
exhibitions and two enormous aquaria sections you can have a look
at the diversity of life and various habitats in the seas of the northern
hemisphere.
This audio guide introduces you to the highlights of our exhibitions, so
please follow the orange line on the floor, which marks the best path
to follow through the museum.
Since it was opened in 2008, the OZEANEUM has enthralled several
million visitors and is one of the most visited museums in Germany.
So, why not dive in? We promise that you’ll definitely be looking at the
underwater world of the oceans through different eyes!
The tour begins right here in the foyer. Above us are two gigantic
whale skeletons. These are original fin whale and sperm whale
skeletons and they’re not just here for decoration, because time and
again these enormous mammals get stranded on Germany’s coasts,
even though they don’t live here. They lose their way in their search
for food in the shallow waters of the Baltic and North Sea coasts and
can’t find their way back to deeper waters. The smaller minke whale
also got stranded on the south Baltic coast near Graal-Müritz.
Fin whales and minke whales belong to the family of baleen whales.
This group of whales filter small crabs and fish out of the water with
their baleens, or rows of keratin plates attached to their upper jaw.
Sperm whales, however, belong to the family of toothed whales; the
successful fish hunters that also like to hunt squid in the open seas.
2
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
If you look at the skeletons, you can still see traces of their ancestry:
they originated from land-living mammals. So take a ride on Europe’s
longest indoor escalator and see if you can discover the fin whale’s
pelvic bone – it is what remained of its ancestors’ hind legs.
At the end of the escalator, which is as long as a blue whale by the
way, you have a spectacular view across the Strelasund to the island
of Rügen. This view is your threshold to the endless submarine world
of the seas.
I hope you find the OZEANEUM both entertaining and informative
enough to make you want to come again and learn more!
3
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
02 Ocean
Bild:
Dimmed light and the sound of the sea - welcome to the oceanic
world! „Ocean maps,“ on the walls show you the large ocean basins
and two adjacent seas.
When trying to interpret their contours, it becomes clear just how little
we know about the nature of the earth beyond the continents.
Only 30% of the earth’s surface is visible as land above the water.
The oceans cover 70% and these in turn hold 96 percent of all water
on planet earth.
Knowledge of our oceans is limited because the underwater
landscape is hidden from our immediate gaze. We have to go down
into the depths using special diving gear; but even when equipped
with a submersible vehicle, researchers have still only managed short
insights into the large unknown of the undersea world.
This is not surprising when you consider that in comparison to the
average 800-metre height of our continents our oceans are on
average, 3.800 metres deep. In fact, their deepest point in the
Mariana Trench is almost 11.000 metres deep.
The relief globe shows you an unusual view of our planet in that the
water is missing! The contours have been super elevated to a scale of
100 so you can see and touch the wealth of structures on the ocean
floor. There are high mountain ranges, valleys, large flat expanses
and there are even some mountains that reach from the ocean floor
right up to the ocean surface and beyond. In fact, if you look at things
from this point of view, Mount Everest is not the highest mountain in
the world; the almost 10.000 metre Mauna Kea of Hawaii is. Only
4.200 metres of it are visible above the water and 5.800 metres
remain submerged beneath the ocean surface.
And in comparison to the deep-sea basins, the oceans before our
door, the Baltic and North Seas, are more like shallow puddles.
4
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
5
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
03 Deep Sea Angler, Siphonophore
Bild:
The 12 triangular showcases in this room show you the diversity of life
in the sea. The conditions that govern the depths of the oceans are
different to those on land: it is dark, temperatures are low and water
pressure is high, but there is still life. Creatures such as the deep-sea
angler in this showcase are perfectly adapted to the inhospitable
conditions and its nondescript colouring is also a result of the lack of
light at the depth at which it lives.
Everything on the deep-sea angler appears to be used for searching
for and digesting food. This is why it has an angler – a long fishingrod-like adaptation on its head with a bioluminescent lure that is used
to entice its prey. Its large mouth, fang-like teeth, stretchy stomach
and elastic skin mean it can catch and digest creatures larger than
itself, which is reflected in its very slow digestive process.
The original specimen on display here is female. Males are only about
two centimetres in size and as soon as they meet a female, they live
attached to her as a continually available egg capsule.
But there are other creatures that live in the deep sea. In fact, a
Thuringian glass artist recreated a detailed model of the filigree body
construction of a Siphonophore with its fluorescent tentacles from 12
kilos of glass and more than 2500 single parts. Siphonophores consist
of a colony of specialized individual organisms known as polyps. Part
of these are responsible for locomotion, another part for reproduction,
while another is responsible for nourishment. The creatures function
altogether as one organism.
It was very difficult to find a specimen to base our model on because
although these delicate creatures float along so gracefully under
water, only unsightly gelatinous masses and lumps remain once one
has been brought up to the surface in a fisherman’s net for example.
6
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
So we used photographs and a roughly 5-centimetre preserved
Siphonophore colony as visual aid.
7
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
04 Cockles and Bass
Bild:
Collecting cockles and mussels on the beach is a great pastime and
their wonderful array of shapes and colours is always a source of
fascination. There are 200 examples of these marine beauties in the
showcase entitled “calcareous artwork“. But we can only show you a
fraction of the molluscs present on our planet, because there are
around 80,000 species of snail and about 20,000 species of mussels
and cockles known to us altogether.
The fascinating patterns are created when the two halves of the
bivalve shell and the spiral snail shell grow with the creatures inside
and build in colourful pigments as part of the process. These are a
valuable source of information for scientists with regards to growth
processes and pattern formation in nature.
Enjoy looking at the exhibits, which are intentionally unlabelled.
Perhaps you’ve even found a few of them on the beach yourself?!
The showcase further back on the right entitled „Perch-like fish“, is
also dedicated to the diversity of species in the sea. These roughly
30 taxidermy-mounted specimens show you a wealth of shape and
colour that is difficult to match. Despite their very different
appearance, these fish belong to a single systematic group. This
means they have common characteristics, which determine their
species, genera and family. Fish that come under the perch order are
not only the richest in species diversity as far as fish go, but of all
known vertebrates. Here you can see the European Perch that lives in
freshwater, the clown fish, the dolphin fish, or the remora. Their two
dorsal fins, a front hard radial fin and a rear soft radial fin are the
characteristics they have in common.
The displayed fish models, by the way, are known as taxidermy
mounts and they come from the German Oceanographic Museum
collections: Moulds are made from the fish bodies so that a threedimensional core-model can be reproduced afterwards. The original
8
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
fish skin is then mantled around, or put around the model, so you
could say that all of these creatures did once swim in the sea!
9
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
05 Collecting – A Museum’s Task
Bild:
The task of a oceanographic museum is to collect, preserve,
document and exhibit creatures that live in the oceans. But only a
fraction of the scientifically significant collections can be actually put
on display, the larger part is kept in the museum archives, or to be
more precise: the biodiversity archives. These contain specimens or
fossils of creatures that may have already died out. They help
scientists using modern molecular biology for example, to reconstruct
the history of life in our seas.
This showcase provides you with an insight into our archives. The
collected glass bottles show you various groups of marine creatures.
In addition to these there are also a number of harbour porpoise
skulls. These small cetaceans are a focal point of research at the
German Oceanographic Museum. All dead harbour porpoises on the
south-east shores of the Baltic Sea are collected up, their site of
discovery documented, their skeletons preserved and the cause of
death examined. At the moment there are more than 360 of these
small cetaceans in the German Oceanographic Museum’s archives.
10
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
06 Baltic Sea Relief
Bild:
You have now entered the Baltic Sea exhibition. We have created an
imaginary path through the Baltic Sea and along its coasts to help you
form a picture of the various types of coast, the typical habitats and
biocoenosis.
To begin with here’s a relief of the Baltic sea floor. It has been
produced using data from depth measurements and super elevated to
a scale of 250 to help you see its morphology more clearly.
In its current form, the Baltic Sea first developed about 12,000 years
ago after the last ice age. When the ice melted, sea levels rose and
the landmasses of Scandinavia rose simultaneously. Access to the
world’s oceans was temporarily cut off so that the Baltic Sea was
alternatingly governed by saltwater or freshwater conditions.
Even today there is only a narrow trench connecting the Baltic to the
North Sea and the north Atlantic, so the salt concentration in the
western part of the Baltic Sea is higher while the salt levels towards
the east and north decrease continuously. Around Stralsund for
example, there are 10 grams of salt per litre compared with 35 grams
per litre in the open oceans. In addition to this, the Baltic Sea receives
a large inflow of freshwater from rivers and rainwater. The low salt
levels mean it is classified as a brackish water sea. For this reason
both saltwater and some freshwater fish feel at home in Stralsund
harbour basin.
Salt water is heavier than freshwater. So, it flows into the Baltic Sea
along the sea floor underneath the layer of brackish water. The
ridges and basins on the seafloor that you can clearly see here are
obstructions, which prevent the homogenous mixing of the water. The
result of this is that the water in the deep basins to the east and north
is rarely replaced and remains stagnant. Here, in water with relatively
low oxygen levels, it is almost impossible for any non-bacterial life
11
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
forms to exist. This also makes the Baltic Sea a very sensitive sea. In
addition, contaminants like those used for agricultural purposes tend
run off the land and accumulate in the basin rather than being
transported away. So, conservation of the Baltic environment is very
important here!
12
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
07 Plankton
Bild:
Have you ever been swimming in the Baltic Sea, or any sea for that
matter, and swallowed some water? Well, if you have, and I’m sure
it’s happened to most of us, I bet you’ve never stopped to think that
there are thousands of miniscule creatures and plant organisms
known as plankton in that mouthful!
If you have a look up at the ceiling you’ll see some of these
organisms from the Baltic Sea enlarged on a scale of 25 to four
thousand. The diversity of life in its many different shapes, forms and
colours that inhabits our seas is amazing: miniscule algae, snails and
crab larvae, jellyfish, fish larvae or mussels! Without this microscopic
world life on earth would be unthinkable, because it is the beginning
of almost all food chains. Even the largest inhabitants of our oceans
such as baleen whales, basking sharks or manta rays feed on
plankton and marine phytoplankton is one of the most important
oxygen producers on Earth.
For this reason we have made plankton the central focal point of this
exhibition room, to represent life in the open water of the Baltic Sea.
13
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
08 Porpoises
Bild:
The Baltic Sea also has an indigenous species of whale: the up to 2
metre-long harbour porpoise, which is often mistaken for a dolphin.
The porpoises come to the shallow coastal waters in the spring to
give birth to their young. In the showcase you’ll see a model of a
porpoise giving birth. It is a replica of the original birthing female found
dead in June 1984 near Dranske on the island of Rügen after a bad
storm.
As you can see, the young mammal comes out of the birthing canal
tail fin first. This is very important for the calf’s survival, because it has
to be able to swim as soon as it is born, which is only possible with
the hardened tailfin, otherwise known as a fluke. If the calf came into
the world headfirst it would drown because it couldn’t follow its mother
up to the surface for its first essential breath of life.
Harbour porpoises are the focal point of research at the German
Oceanographic Museum. Scientists count, document and archive all
dead porpoises that are found and use special equipment to detect
the clicking sounds they produce to communicate via echo location.
This helps us monitor and learn about their location, distribution and
migration patterns. You can find out more about this research in the
showcases on the walls to the left behind the porpoise showcase.
14
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
09 White-Tailed Sea Eagle
Bild:
With a bit of luck you’ll be able to watch these majestic birds of prey
in action around the wooded landscapes and lakes near the coast in
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. About 100 years ago the white tailed sea
eagle was considered extinct in this area, and it was, above all
pesticides used in agriculture that afflicted them. Today, following
intensive bird and nature conservation, around 250 breeding pairs
have returned to our region.
The white tailed sea eagles table is richly laid above all in winter
when millions of water birds gather in the Baltic Sea marshes and
lagoons. Ducks, geese and swans crowd into waterways and other
ice-free waters, which guarantee the white tailed eagle a good supply
of prey. During this time 40 to 60 of these impressive birds can be
observed over the sea areas off Rügen and Hiddensee. With a
wingspan of up to 2-½ metres, the white tailed eagle is the largest bird
of prey on the Baltic Sea.
Long-tailed ducks that are also on display in the showcase, are
actually more at home in arctic waters, but they spend the winter on
the Baltic Sea. There are approximately 4 million of them and they’re
a sight to behold, especially in February when their courtship display
begins with enticing mating calls from the male, which sound like
yodelling. The males also perform an eye-catching courtship dance
accompanied by parade flights in which several males plunge onto a
female. The young come into the world later in their arctic summer
quarters.
If you would like to know more about the birdlife of MecklenburgVorpommern, have a look at the display cases on the wall that contain
information about food gathering, coastal bird preservation areas and
our most important winter guests. The small showcases show you the
difference between the various chicks.
15
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
10 Grey Seal
Bild:
Three species of seals also live in the Baltic sea: grey seals, ringed
seals and the harbour seal were almost extinct here at the beginning
of the 20th century, but the number of grey seals in particular has
since recovered.
Here you can watch one of the biggest predators of the Baltic Sea
hunting. Grey seals use their whiskers for orientation; these are 100
times more sensitive than those on a cat and can detect the smallest
of patterns in the current. This makes it possible for the grey seal to
detect a prey fish that is hiding on the seafloor by the traces it left
behind while swimming through the water.
The grey seal swims in murky waters so sight orientation takes a
subordinate role. When hunting the animals often swim on their
backs, because their eyes are so far up on their heads that they have
a better downward and forward view from this position.
At the back of the showcase you’ll see a ringed seal. Ringed Seals
belong to the group of mammals that frequented the Baltic Sea during
the ice ages more than 10,000 years ago. When the ice retreated
and the land began to rise the Ringed seals were cut-off from their
arctic habitat and made „ prisoners,“ in the Baltic Sea. Ringed Seals
need ice however, especially for giving birth to and rearing their
young, which is carried out in ice caves. The typical white fur of the
young mammals can only protect them from temperatures of down to
-25°C when it is dry. If the fur gets wet, they are in danger of freezing
at 0°C. So the depletion of ice in the oceans happening as a result of
worldwide climate change is threatening the Ringed Seals’ existence.
16
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
11 Baltic Sea Aquaria – Introduction
Bild:
You have already learnt a lot about the oceans and the Baltic Sea on
our doorstep, but what does it really look like underwater? What is the
rich variety of underwater life like?
Accompany us on a dive in the north seas, along the coast of the
Baltic Sea, and later, in a separate part of the OZEANEUM building,
through the North Sea and the north Atlantic. Up until this point you
have only seen mounted animals or models, but from now on you’ll be
looking into the eyes of the living underwater world. We have native
sea creatures such as sharks, sturgeons, rays, eels, lobsters and
jellyfish. The aquaria provide the best possible naturalistic conditions,
with caves, rock crevices, sandy floors and realistic decoration, but
you will probably have to look very closely to find some of the
creatures.
The aquaria here in the Ozeaneum show examples of the natural
habitats and contain the shapes and richness of colour in the seas in
the northern hemisphere. It isn’t only tropical waters such as the
Caribbean with its coral reefs that have such a rich colour spectrum!
Please start your tour of the Baltic Sea in the Stralsund harbour
basin. You’re still standing on the quayside looking at it from above at
the moment, but when you go down beneath the surface we kindly
ask to note the following: you are more than welcome to take
photographs of the aquaria, BUT WITHOUT FLASH, PLEASE! A
camera flash not only frightens the creatures, but can also cause
them irreversible harm.
So, go ahead, dive in – and enjoy yourself!
17
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
12 Harbour Basin
Bild:
A harbour basin in a state that should come as no surprise in our
consumer society. Full of refuse; a shopping trolley, an old bike or a
broken rudder are all sooner or later discarded and thrown in here.
Our marine inhabitants adopt these objects and make them part of
their habitat, so the bike is soon covered in barnacles and some fish
use the wooden barrels as a hideout.
Harbours are nurseries or winter camps for many species of fish. An
enormous number of creatures live here and these are not just saltwater inhabitants such as flounder and European shore crabs. There
are many freshwater fish here as well; common rudd and the
European Perch for example feel very much at home in the low
salinity levels.
There are only a few species of fish, however, that can live
permanently in both salt and fresh water. European eels, a type of
migratory fish, are one of these, but eel larva hatches a long way from
here in the west Atlantic. Within 2 to 3 years the Gulf stream carries
them to the European coasts from where the young, still transparent
„glass eels,“ move up the rivers into inland waters. Here they grow
over many years until they reach sexual maturity and only then do
they begin their 5000 km journey back to the spawning waters in the
open Atlantic. They are probably guided by the earth’s magnetic field.
Yet despite its unique achievements, the European Eel is threatened
with extinction. Even the young transparent „glass eels,“ are greatly
overfished on South European coasts and in addition, the eel’s
migration has been impeded by constructions in rivers. When
migrating downstream eels often fall victim to turbines from
hydropower stations, and sewage and plant toxins simply add to their
plight.
18
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
13 Chalk Coast
Bild:
The landmark of the Baltic Sea islands of Rügen and Møn are the
chalk cliffs along the coast. The white rocks extend under the water to
form the seafloor. On land the cliffs are often overgrown, with flint and
the remains of fallen trees lying in the sand.
The several-hundred-metre thick chalk layer, came into being during
the cretaceous age, about 70 million years ago. It is supposed that
large numbers of microscopic organisms lived in the Rügener Senke,
a shallow sea basin. Their calcium-carbonate shells and skeletons
were deposited on the bottom. These formed an especially fine type
of chalk, which later hardened into limestone. During the land raising
process at the end of the last ice age this limestone was lifted out of
the water and formed the chalk coast.
The chalk coast is the habitat of the turbot, cod and garfish.
Try and spot the turbot hiding in the sand: These almost round native
flatfish can reach a diameter of up to 70 cm and are able to
camouflage themselves perfectly to suit their respective subsurface
habitat. .
The cod is one of the sad examples of over-fishing in the Baltic Sea
and elsewhere. It is in fact a very fertile fish that lays its millions of
floating eggs in open water, but its numbers have nevertheless
drastically declined. This means that such large cod as that you are
looking at here are now extremely difficult to find in nature. The
majority are fished when they’re a lot smaller – you only need to think
of the fish you buy. Stipulated catch quotas and stock management
measures have been put in place in the Baltic Sea to try and call a
halt to the depletion.
I’m sure you’ll recognise the slim Garfish straightaway. They’re like
shiny silver arrows. Their long beak-like jaws have small needlepoint
teeth on them. Garfish are also popular culinary fish that you can
19
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
recognise by their green bones. Garfish are caught when they follow
the large schools of herring at the end of spring into the shallow
Greifswald Bodden.to spawn. If you look closely you will see that
some of their „beaks“ are flat at the front. This happens when visitors
use flash photography, frighten the fish and cause them to suddenly
bump into the glass or the decoration.
20
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
14 Open Baltic Sea – Herrings
Bild:
You’re now standing in front of the large herring pool. No prizes for
guessing why herrings are called the „Silver of the Baltic Sea!“ The
shiny bodies of these schooling fish are permanently on the move,
which creates a sparkly confusion in the water. In the past when the
moon illuminated large numbers of herrings under the surface of the
water it signalled that the huge schools of them had arrived in spring.
The herring is still referred to as the „Bread Fish“ of the Baltic Sea.
During the Middle Ages salted herrings were the most important food
during Lent and during the Hanseatic era herring was one of the most
important traded goods that constituted a large part of the merchants’
wealth and resulting power. Herrings meant the jingling of coins,
which was another reason for their nickname „the Silver of the Sea“.
Because of their large numbers you can still eat herring without
having a bad conscience, but to catch them in the wild and keep them
in an aquarium requires an excellent and extraordinary degree of
dexterity. The slightest touch causes these fish to lose scales, which
results in a skin infection and death within a few days. Here at the
OZEANEUM we use two gentle catching methods that have enabled
us to put together a large and healthy school of herrings. Despite this
every single fish had to be placed in quarantine for the first few weeks
before being transferred to the large herring pool. During the
quarantine period they were freed of parasites and gradually
introduced to a pellet diet.
If you would like to continue now and go past the next two small
aquaria, you’ll come to a large round pool. If you stop here you’ll be
able to say hello to our „oldest serving colleague.“ The gold coloured
sturgeon that swims around in there is already over 50 and used to be
kept in the MEERESMUSEUM, or Oceanographic Museum.
21
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
15 Kattegat
Bild:
The last point of interest on our journey through the habitats of the
Baltic Sea is the Kattegat. Kattegat is the name of the most westerly
Baltic Sea region; the crossover to the North Sea. The salt content of
the water is higher here and the diversity of species is therefore more
marine in nature. You will see species of coral such as the luminous
orange dead man’s fingers, countless starfish, sea urchins and
scallops.
The Kattegat area consists of the large pool and five smaller ones. If
you have a look in the small aquarium to the immediate left of the
large one you might be able to see an exceptionally clever - and at
the same time very playful marine inhabitant. Can you see him? ...
It’s the octopus that often hides. Nothing is secure enough when an
octopus is around and if you’re not looking, he’ll slip through an
aquarium cover that isn’t fixed properly, or watch his keeper
unscrewing the lid of a bottle, and help himself to his own food later.
In the large aquarium you can also see the tub gurnard. Apart from
its beautiful colour this creature is also interesting in the way it moves.
It appears to walk along the sea floor while its large wing-like pectoral
fins create an almost floating swimming action. The tub gurnard
creates vibratory growling noises with its swim bladder.
In the Kattegat you’ll also find the first sharks and rays. Cat sharks
hunt close to the ground and belong to the few fish that are able to
close their eyes, but not like we do: the lower lid pushes up to close
the eye from the bottom.
Breeding and rearing sharks and thornback rays in captivity is not
difficult. The females lay their egg capsules on water plants that our
divers then collect up. In the OZEANEUM’s quarantine tanks, the
embryos feed on their yolk sacs until the baby fish hatch. As soon as
the animals have grown enough they’re re-housed in the show
22
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
aquarium.
23
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
16 Exploration and Use – introduction
Bild:
The yellow submersible research vehicle „GEO“ signals the
beginning of our exhibition dedicated to the exploration and utilisation
of the oceans resources. As a result of their unfathomable depths,
the oceans are still considered widely unknown territory. In fact it was
only a few decades ago that researchers were able to get their first
glimpse of this gigantic empire of the dark, the life forms that inhabit it,
its resources and natural phenomena. This was made possible using
research robots and submersible vehicles like the „GEO“ here on
display.
The first German manned submersible vehicle „GEO“ was built in
1980. It was capable of 12 hours continuous operation, could dive
down to a depth of 230 metres and move along the sea floor
independently. The „GEO“ became famous in 1987 when it
discovered the coelacanth. This primeval marine inhabitant had been
considered extinct for millions of years. But in 1938 some dead
specimens were discovered on a fish market in South Africa. But the
search for living coelacanths that ensued didn’t achieve success until
half a century later. With the help of „GEO“ and its crew the creatures
could be observed in their natural habitat just off the Comoros Islands.
In 1988 the „JAGO,“ a modern submersible vehicle replaced „GEO.“
But in modern-day exploration of the oceans diving doesn’t get you far
any more and modern marine technology is bringing new discoveries
to light. This section of our exhibition will tell you all about these new
discoveries and current research. When you step on to the slightly
sloping floor you are stepping on board a marine research vessel.
Showcases constitute the ship’s railing behind which research
equipment is detecting the treasures of the sea.
24
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
17 Deep-Sea Treasures
Bild:
What you are looking at here is a camera sledge used to explore the
deep sea. The first models of equipment like this were built back in
the 1960s. Their frames are extremely robust, because they have to
be able to withstand high water pressure, high salt levels and low
temperatures. Inside the frame are some extremely sensitive
electronics that have become more and more sophisticated over the
years. During the 1970s the built-in black-and-white camera in this
historical camera sledge, delivered the first pictures of the Pacific
deep sea floor and its manganese nodule fields, which had been
previously almost unknown territory. The manganese nodule field
under the sledge by the way is made up of real nodules!
Manganese nodules cover large areas of the deep sea. Alongside
manganese, these black nodules also contain other important metals
such as copper, nickel or cobalt that have built up layer by layer over
millions of years. Extracting them at a depth of several thousand
metres requires highly specialized technology. Countries like China,
with a high demand for raw materials, have been working on
developing such technology over recent years and extraction areas
have already been allocated in the waters around Hawaii for example.
So projects for the extraction of raw materials from the sea floor are
already in the starting blocks. But what effect this will have on the
delicate eco systems close to the sea floor is questionable.
Manganese nodules are not the only raw material suppliers in the
deep sea by the way, black smokers are as well; these are submarine
volcanoes whose vents are also rich in ores.
25
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
18 „Population Census“ – Diversity of Marine Species
Bild:
From the large swordfish to miniscule bacteria, this panopticon of
around 60 gauge glasses gives you an insight into the fascinating
diversity of species in our oceans.
And yet this is just a fraction of all living sea organisms that we know
of. How many and which living organisms are there really in our
oceans?
Well, researchers from all over the world have asked this question
and a project was started entitled „Census of Marine Life“. This
inventory, which was carried out over a period of 10 years made one
thing very clear: fish and marine mammals only constitute a small part
of the living sea world. The seas are above all a habitat for crabs,
molluscs, echinoderms and cnidarians and that’s without mentioning
bacteria with a biomass at least as large as that of the more highly
developed creatures.
Would you like to experience the deep sea for yourself? Well, in the
middle of this room you’ll find a „dive“ cinema, which takes you on a
10-minute virtual journey in a submersible vehicle from the Baltic Sea
coast to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and back at a depth of 4000 m . The
explanations are in German, but the pictures are – international.
During this virtual voyage you not only pass through various different
habitats and watch porpoises, mackerel and basking sharks in action
but you can also see some hot springs on the sea floor, some black
smokers and some of the most bizarre deep-sea creatures.
We hope you enjoy it!
The audio guide continues as usual afterwards.
26
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
19 Over Fishing
Bild:
Around 80 million tons of fish are caught all over the world every
year. That’s 219,000 tons per day, 150 tons per minute and 2.5 tons
per second. An indescribably large amount if you can imagine just
how much fish that is - if you need some help with your visualisation,
the boxes stacked behind the railing hold a ton of fish altogether.
Fishing nets up to 200 metres long and 100 meters high are used,
which would take in the whole of the OZEANEUM several times over.
So a gigantic depletion of our seas is taking place and we accept and
take this for granted every time we thoughtlessly eat fish.
In the two showcases about fishing and the use of fish products you
can learn, which fish are the most popular and what has happened to
their numbers as a result of overfishing. Marine protection
organisations are working to turn 10% of our seas into protected
areas so that fish numbers can replenish, but at the moment they’ve
only managed to reach 1.5%.
Aquaculture is an apparent solution, but the rearing and production
of fish in artificial surroundings requires a huge amount of food, which
is supplied by fish that has been caught. Only a very small portion of
anchovies, the commonest type of fish caught, end up on our plates.
Most of them are used for fishmeal, and this isn’t only used to feed
reared fish and crabs, but also for farm animals. A kilogram of reared
fish requires 2 kg of anchovies while chickens and pigs need much,
much more.
So what can we do ourselves to stop the depletion of life in our seas?
Well, when you buy fish have a look at the various different seals of
quality, such as the well-known MSC label, which is supported by
WWF and based on sustainable fishing. Alongside WWF,
Greenpeace has also published a pocketsize Fish Guidebook that you
can pick up free of charge at the Greenpeace stand at the
27
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
OZEANEUM exit.
And you can test your knowledge about sustainable fishing right here
on this computer monitor. The explanations are only in German, but
you will understand the rest, so have a go!
28
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
20 North Sea – Wadden Sea
Bild:
We hope our basking shark hanging from the ceiling hasn’t scared
you to death! Don’t worry anyway, despite its huge open mouth; it’s
relatively harmless and mainly feeds on plankton.
But you should exercise more caution with the much smaller,
colourfully checked, yet less conspicuous sea inhabitant known as a
Greater Weever. And as a member of our team discovered when he
caught this fish, the poisonous spikes on its dorsal fin and gill cover
release a sting that causes extremely painful and chronic swellings.
Greater weevers are mudflat inhabitants and therefore live in our
Wadden Sea aquarium. But you don’t need to worry if you’re
wandering barefoot along the mud flats in summer, because at low
tide these fish retreat to deeper waters. Plaice, brill, lemon sole or
common sole – all flatfish also use the Wadden Sea as a nursery. Try
spotting the well-camouflaged fish buried in the sandy floor! Most of
them only have their eyes showing.
The young flatfish are protected from large predators in the wadden
sea and have a rich supply of food. The reason for this is the tides:
every 12 hours high tide brings a flood of fresh water and new food. It
is here that the smallest crabs, diatoms, mussels, snails and worms
live. The rich supply of food in the wadden seas around SchleswigHolstein, Hamburg and lower Saxony therefore draw many species of
birds and fish.
Our wadden sea aquarium also houses other mud flat inhabitants,
such as starfish or sea urchins. Did you know that sea urchins can
move their spines and gather algae on their backs for camouflage?
Sea urchins and starfish belong to the echinoderms and are therefore
closely related. Imagine folding a five-pointed starfish into a ball, and
you’ll see that it looks very similar to a sea urchin.
29
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
21 Heligoland
Bild:
Here you can see a coastal formation that is very rare in Germany
known as the rocky coast. It can only be found on Heligoland,
Germany’s only offshore island, which lies about 40 km away from the
mainland in the middle of the North Sea. You can see the Helgoland
red sandstone rocks in our Tunnel aquarium
Algae have grown on the rocks to form extensive seaweed thickets.
These serve as hideout for the large-spotted dogfish, a type of shark
that is not harmful to humans, but with eyes and markings that are
reminiscent of big cats.
Edible crabs live in the crevices of the sandstone rocks and the meat
in their huge claws is an important component of Heligoland Cuisine.
The area surrounding the rocky cliffs is also the habitat for various
cod-like fish; common ling, saithe and pollock all feel at home here. It
is above all saithe with its distinct white lateral line that is deceptively
sold as pollock in fish fingers or other pre-prepared fish dishes. The
halibut is at home here too, and being up to 4 metres long, it’s a real
flatfish giant!
A bit smaller, but still over a metre long here in the OZEANEUM, is
the angler. These fish lie close to the sea floor, well camouflaged and
still, waiting for their prey that they entice towards them with their
fishing rod like dorsal fin. And their huge mouths, armed with pointy
teeth look decidedly macabre.
30
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
22 Surge Coastline
Bild:
The inhabitants of the surge coastline have a constant supply of fresh
oxygenated water and new food. We based our aquarium design on a
surf coast in England. Every minute the artificially created waves roll
onto the rocky shore. Strong currents created by the constant
backwards and forwards of the waves demand good manoeuvrability
from the fish that live in these waters. Wrasse are especially good at
playfully compensating for the movements in the water, or retreat into
deeper zones. Other fish that can’t hold their own and lose their sense
of direction in such waters are easy prey.
The subdued brown-orange and luminous blue of the female and
male cuckoo wrasse stand out among the other wrasses swimming in
this aquarium. To be more exact, there is only ever one male fish in a
wrasse harem and this male, like all other males of its species
originally came into the world as a female. It takes a dominant female
seven to thirteen years to transform into a male and it keeps its
orange colouring to begin with. Should the dominant male of the
harem die however, it makes itself known as the new harem leader by
turning blue.
By the way, younger males do not miss an opportunity to “poach“
within the harem, but fertilize the females’ eggs laid on stones
incognito. In this way the true father of a cuckoo wrasse usually
remains a mystery.
31
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
23 Deep Sea – Cold Water Corals
Bild:
Look out! We’re entering the deep sea! At a depth of several
hundred metres darkness pervades alongside almost consistent low
temperatures. Day and night – and the changing of the seasons
hardly exist down here, but nevertheless many species of starfish, sea
cucumber, clams and deep water prawns all manage to live in these,
by our standards, inhospitable depths.
Special highlights of this region however, are the cold water corals.
Did you know that the longest coral reef on the earth is not the Great
Barrier Reef, but a reef in the seas of the northern hemisphere?
Along the continental slopes of the Atlantic between Norway and
Morocco are luminous splashes of colour that are cold water corals.
So we also have exotic beauties in our waters and we have to protect
them, because cold-water corals grow very slowly and are more
threatened today than they ever have been. Global warming,
pollution, ocean acidification and fishing with heavy bottom trawling
nets are placing the millennia-old reefs in danger.
Staff members of the Ozeaneum were able to see these fantastic
coral reefs with their own eyes in 2013 when they went diving a
hundred metres deep in the ice-cold waters of the Norwegian
Trondheim Fjord. The aim of the expedition was to recover various
stony corals and gorgonians, as well as basket stars for the
OZEANEUM. The valuable freight was brought to Germany on-board
the German research vessel „Poseidon.“
In order to keep the cold water corals in our aquaria we have to take
special care to ensure that correct nutrition and light are available. In
contrast to tropical corals that live in symbiosis with algae, cold-water
corals filter their food from the current. This means the water must be
permanently moving to enable the corals to feed on the plankton we
produce here at the OZEANEUM.
32
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
The sparse light is based on blue and ultra-violet light that penetrates
into the depths of the sea; these sensitive living organisms can only
survive in such dim light conditions.
33
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
24 Open Atlantic
Bild:
If you’re tired after all this walking, feel free to sit down on one of the
benches and enjoy a unique view of the large Atlantic Basin! It’s
about 9 metres deep and contains a sperm whale skeleton near the
bottom. Restless and continually moving, glittering schools of fish
swim past and hunting Bonitos, sea bass, trigger fish and various rays
are at home here.
A special highlight however is our female sand tiger shark, Niki, who
has been living here in the OZEANEUM since 2012. At 2-½ m long
and weighing 200 kg, she had simply become too big for her
aquarium at Berlin zoo. She swims slowly around and shows us her
razor-sharp revolver set of teeth. But her cool expression and evil grin
are misleading: Niki only feeds on fish and crabs and hasn’t
developed a taste for human beings. In fact, only a few sharks are
dangerous to humans and most shark attacks up until now have been
due to misunderstandings and human recklessness.
Protection of sharks is more the order of the day at the moment
because of the on going massacre of living animals that is customary
in what is called „finning“, when the pectoral and dorsal fins are
removed. The fins are coveted delicacies in Asia, and even in Europe
the consumption of the smoked or fried meat of the spiny dogfish is
driving these sharks to the verge of extinction.
Sharks by the way are true masters of perception: their eyes, sense
of smell and hearing are all highly sensitive. In addition, sharks use
the electrical field of the earth to navigate, and their streamlined
shape along with their skin covered in miniscule teeth, are remarkable
models for swimsuits, hulls and aeroplane wings.
Two further sharks, the nurse sharks Anna and Anton, usually lie
hidden among the bones of the large sperm whale skeleton during the
day, but you’ll get a good view of them from the lower floor. To get
there, please go down the steps and have a look at the aquarium from
34
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
the bottom. Following this, please come back upstairs to continue
your tour, which will take you across the OZEANEUM roof terrace. If
you’d like to pay the Humboldt Penguins a visit up there, please go up
the steps and then keep right.
35
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
25 Penguins – Roof Terrace
Bild:
From the roof terrace on a fine day you not only have a fantastic view
of Stralsund old town, but you can also pay a small colony of
penguins a visit, that will be here to receive you whatever the
weather!
These are Humboldt-Penguins, who are at home on the west coast of
South America where the Humboldt Current carries the cold nutrientrich water along the coast. Humboldt penguins feed on small
schooling fish such as anchovies and sardines. They build their nests
on the mainland, mainly in the north of Chile and in Peru where the
climate is hot and dry. So, as long as the water is cold enough for
them to cool off, hot summer weather doesn’t bother the penguins on
our roof terrace in the slightest. Their feathery coat, which is
especially thick on the outside and oiled on the tips of the feathers not
only protects them from the cold and wet, but also from drying out in
the sun. Penguin chicks however, don’t have this protective layer and
are protected by their parents to begin with, but here in the museum
they later have to be reared by hand for a while because it’s the only
way to prevent them from falling into the water and drowning.
Humboldt penguins with their dark tailcoat and light bib are well
camouflaged against predators from the air and underwater, but today
they are still a threatened species. Nowadays there are more
Humboldt penguins living in zoos throughout the world than in the
wild, mainly because they are hunted for being a danger to fisheries
and are greatly depleted by oil and plastic marine pollution. In addition
human beings are robbing them of their natural habitats.
Most Humboldt penguins living in captivity today are the offspring of
captive penguins. The penguins here in the OZEANEUM are no
exception and breed successfully. These predominantly monogamous
birds have coloured ties on their wings here at the OZEANEUM so
that we can tell them apart. You can watch them being fed if you want
36
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
to. Feedings times take place right here on the roof terrace at the
displayed times!
37
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
26 Marine Giants – Introduction
Bild:
It’s a breath-taking sight, isn’t it? The exhibition hall of marine giants,
20 metres high and bathed in soft blue light! The surface of the water
shimmers above you and you come face to face with the largest
marine inhabitants. Just as if you were deep-sea diving, you can go
down various levels and learn about these giants’ idiosyncrasies and
the things that threaten them. There is a multi-media show awaiting
you at the bottom, so settle down on the loungers and enjoy a show of
lighting effects, sounds and pictures. The show is in German, but it’s
still entertaining even if you don’t speak the language!
These are life-size models: the blue whale is the largest and heaviest
living being on earth. Our model is 26 metres long, but a blue whale in
the wild can be more than 30 metres in length and weigh up to 200
tons.
Alongside the Blue Whale, you’ll see another whale that looks
completely different: a humpback whale with its calf.
Humpback whales are well known for covering enormous distances;
in fact scientists tracked one from just outside the Brazilian coast to
Madagascar, 10.000 kilometres away. How did they do that, you
might ask? Well, a humpback whale’s tail fin is like a fingerprint. The
different colours, barnacle growth or bite scars from killer whales
make their fins unique.
And there’s also a killer whale, otherwise known as an orca in this
exhibition as well. You can also look straight into a manta ray’s open
mouth and see a sperm whale fighting a giant squid.
As I’m sure you can imagine, the making, transport and installation of
these enormous models presented us with an enormous challenge. A
challenge that without the support of Greenpeace would not have
been possible. Greenpeace staff still play a very active role in
exhibition events as volunteer tour guides for example.
38
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
39
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
27 Fish of the Past and of Today
Bild:
True fish giants such as halibut and plaice, Atlantic redfish, or blue fin
tuna once inhabited our seas. Halibut females can grow up to 3 m
long and some redfish have even reached the age of 70! But fish of
the size of these silhouettes you’re looking at here are something of
the past. Since industrial fishing began to plunder the oceans the
numbers of fish have shrunk dramatically. Large and very old fish are
very rare nowadays and more and more young fish that have had no
chance to lay any eggs are caught in the nets.
Soon we won’t even know how big fish can actually become. Small
fish have become the norm and memories of their original size are
disappearing.
We can only work against this development by putting protective
measures in place. Environmental protection organisations like
Greenpeace work to establish marine sanctuaries so that fish
numbers can recover. But we can also do a lot to help, by reducing
our personal consumption of fish – try taking exotic fish like tuna or
shrimps off your shopping list!
40
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
28 By catch and Counter
Bild:
The eye of a marine mammal is looking at us through the mesh of a
fishing net. Whales, dolphins or sea lions trapped in these nets come
to a torturous end, because even though they live in the sea they
need air to breathe and have to be able to swim up to the surface at
regular intervals.
When fishing fleets are out and about with huge trawl nets, every
single life form in the immediate vicinity is caught in them, whether it
can be used for human consumption or not. The portion in each net
that is not usable, the „by catch“, constitutes on average a quarter of
the whole catch and is thrown back overboard.
Many by catch marine mammals also suffer a terrible end in gill nets
and long line fishing. Lost fishing nets, known as ghost nets drift
around in the oceans and become death traps. Mammals either
drown in them or have terrible injuries from the mesh that cause them
to suffer for the rest of their lives. This is what happened for example
to a harbour porpoise, whose skull was deformed by a fishing net.
I’m sure you’ve already noticed the counter, which has been counting
the dead marine mammals that have been carelessly caught in nets
since the OZEANEUM opened in the summer of 2008. The number is
shockingly high: 600,000 per year, that’s more than one marine
mammal per minute. A futile waste of life for which humans are
responsible.
If you have any questions about what you can do to help prevent this
from happening, we’d like to recommend the Greenpeace Fish
Guidebooks to you once again. These books contain clear guidelines
about eating fish from sustainable sources. And why not have a look
at the Greenpeace website where you will find a lot more about how
to protect our seas.
41
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
42
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
29 Giant Squid
Bild:
Look up! In this unique scene above your heads you are witness to a
battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid. It is not possible for
us as human beings to witness scenes like this because giant squids
live in the deep sea and films of them in action if available at all, are
relatively recent. So how do we know then that sperm whales and
giant squids fight with one another?
Well, a sperm whale’s stomach contents regularly showed the
remains of this strange cephalopod and there were palm-sized traces
of suckers on the sperm whale’s skin. On the basis of this, the giant
squid was estimated to measure up to 60 m, but this was later proved
wrong because the scars on a young sperm whales’s skin grow with
them and appear larger than they actually were to begin with. Despite
this, giant squid measuring up to 18 m have been recorded.
The showcase in front of you shows you a just 6 metre-long giant
squid that was caught in a fishing net. You are looking at one of the
world’s rare original specimens. Giant squids live at a depth of 300 to
1000 metres and can be found off the coast of New Zealand for
example. When they die, their red colouring disappears.
This specimen is male by the way and you can see its long penis
above its head. An egg capsule was found at the other end of its body
that had presumably come from another creature. Giant squids inject
their egg capsules into the body of the female, so was this a nonstarter that was meant for a female? Well we don’t know, and we also
know little about the rearing of their young and their way of living.
So life in the deep sea still predominantly takes place in secret. There
is still a lot for us to discover, unless we destroy it before we have a
chance. That fact is that deep-sea fishing, the mining of raw materials
on the seafloor and the pollution of our oceans with oil and plastic are
destroying the basic habitats of our marine inhabitants every single
43
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
day.
44
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
30 Auf Wiedersehen! (Dr. Harald Benke)
Bild:
Ladies and gentlemen our journey through the underwater world of
the oceans has come to an end for today. I hope you have enjoyed
the experience and have learnt something about the seas and life in
them.
You may also have noticed on your journey of discovery that not
everything in the museum can be covered in one day, so you might
want to come back again. We are always changing and improving our
exhibitions and aquaria so that there is always something new to
discover.
If there was something that you didn’t like, or if you have suggestions
about how we can improve our museum, then please let us know.
You can write to us or ask for the visitors’ book at the information
desk. We read and are grateful for any suggestions!
Before you leave the building we would like to draw your attention to
some other museums in the complex.
First, there’s the MEERESMUSEUM, or German Oceanographic
Museum, the museum foundation’s original building.
It is a large Gothic church, which contains further interesting
exhibitions and more insights into life in our seas.
The Oceanographic Museum’s Aquaria contain creatures from the
Mediterranean and tropical seas - the colourful world of warmer
waters.
I would also like to recommend the NAUTINEUM Dänholm to you,
which is a large outdoor exhibition about hydrography, shipping and
fishing.
Our fourth facility is the NATUREUM Darßer Ort; which is an
exhibition about the Western Pomeranian Lagoon Landscape
National Park and the Baltic Sea coast. The NATUREUM aquaria
45
Kulturaufnahme MV GmbH, Am Seegraben 4, 99099 Erfurt
Audioführung Ozeaneum Stralsund
contain examples of life in the Baltic Sea.
This exhibition is set in a lighthouse yard with outbuildings in the
middle of the national park.
I would like to thank you for your visit and would be delighted to see
you here again at the Ozeaneum.
Auf Wiedersehen and a further pleasant stay in Stralsund!
46