There are some animals that don’t deal well with change. Or rather, they seem to somehow avoid being touched by the passage of time like they’re role playing as Peter Pan or Dorian Gray.

These lurkers on the edges of the evolutionary flow are what scientists have catchingly termed “living fossils.” One of the most well-known examples of being adverse-to-change are the lepisosteiformes, the taxonomic order of fishes more commonly known as “gars.”

These toothy-snooted, predominantly freshwater predators have a fearsome appearance but have come to be much beloved. This episode arrives concurrent with the annual celebration known as “Gar Week.” This weeklong social media event is the brainchild of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and offers an opportunity for the citizens of Earth to pay homage to these evolutionarily stubborn fishes.

This episode features special guest Dr. Solomon David, a well-known, socially media savvy gar expert, researcher and aquatic ecology professor from the University of Minnesota. Learn more about him at solomondavid.net/

[Check out Dr. David’s gar-geous photos and videos via his Instagram (instagram.com/solomon.r.david/) and TikTok (tiktok.com/@solomonrdavid).]

Episode cast

• Casey Phillips, host/senior communications specialist/podcast GARgoyle
• Dr. Solomon David, assistant professor, aquatic ecologist and principal investigator at GarLab (University of Minnesota)
• Dr. Bernie Kuhajda, aquatic conservation biologist (Tennessee Aquarium)

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.

Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Appalachia is an ancient place. That's a fact. Whether your roots in this part of the world run deep, you just moved here or you're merely passing through, the feeling of age in this rippled, time-worn landscape is palpable, especially when you find yourself traipsing off the trail.

The animals that dwell in the deep lakes and far-flung hollers betwixt Appalachia's mountains have birthed many tall tales and legends. And as it turns out, some of them might even have a kernel of truth to them.

In this special episode of the show, we swap tales and shine a light of scientific truth on our old home place. A team of the Aquarium's in-house experts bring their experience to the task of debunking — or possibly lending credence to — common Appalachian animal myths, from rumors of mountain lions haunting the hills to literal big fish stories of giant catfish lurking at the bottom of rivers.

Episode cast

• Casey Phillips, host, senior communications specialist and proud Appalachian
• Rachel Thayer, assistant curator of fishes and daughter of the Commonwealth (of Virginia)
• Bill Hughes, herpetology collection coordinator
• Kevin Calhoon, curator of forests
• Dr. Bernie Kuhajda, aquatic conservation biologist

[Disclaimer: The song used in the introduction to this episode was created through the generative audio platform Suno.]

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.

Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture.

It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

For a fish that first appeared alongside dinosaurs and survived the calamity that wiped them out, the Lake Sturgeon has had a hard last half-century in Tennessee.

Once abundant in the state's waterways, wild Lake Sturgeon were last seen in Tennessee in 1963.

In 1998, the Tennessee Aquarium was among the organizations that founded the Lake Sturgeon Working Group. Since then, the group members have been hard at work raising and releasing baby Lake Sturgeon in hopes of re-establishing a stable wild population in the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.

This year, that effort celebrates 25 years of releasing sturgeon raised in human care, and recent findings by wildlife managers suggest those years of effort may finally be bearing fruit.

Watch our scientists help with spawning wild Lake Sturgeon in Wisconsin: https://youtu.be/ew_4yDb3Ccw

Episode Cast

• Casey Phillips, host/senior/communications specialist
• Dr. Anna George, vice president conservation science & education
• Ed Scott, fisheries biologist, Tennessee Valley Authority (retired)
• Brandon Simcox, rivers and streams coordinator, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.
Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

To the general public, the acronym "AZA" might be largely meaningless, but in the zoo and aquarium world, it's associated with the gold standard by which all aspects of a zoological organization is measured, especially the animals' well being.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums was founded more than 100 years ago in 1924. It now comprises more than 9,000 individual members and has accredited more than 250 institutions worldwide.

In this episode — recorded live at AZA's annual conference in Tampa, Florida — AZA President & CEO Dan Ashe talks about what it means to hold zoos and aquariums to this incredibly high standard, how it (like its member institutions) has had to change over the last century and the pride he takes in AZA's many global conservation-focused efforts around the world.

Learn more about AZA's Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) Program: https://www.aza.org/aza-safe

Episode cast

• Casey Phillips, senior communications specialist, host and AZA member
• Dan Ashe, AZA president & CEO

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.
Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

From impossibly flexible, boneless bodies and mastery of camouflage to an over-abundance of brains and hearts, octopuses are like aliens come down from on high to boggle the minds of biologists.

In this short-form, Mic Droplet episode of the podcast, the Aquarium’s resident octopus specialist helps celebrate World Octopus Day by ticking off a few of the most-noteworthy facts about these amazing cephalopods and explains how in the actual heck you weigh a 50-pound octopus.

See what a morning in the life of an octopus caretaker looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMw9NkkqkmY

Episode cast

• Casey Phillips, host and octopus hug survivor
• Danny Alexander, senior aquarist

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.
Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

When it comes to the most impressive migrations in the animal kingdom , there are a few obvious standouts: the pole-to-pole voyage of the Arctic Tern; the horizon-spanning race of Wildebeests across the Serengeti; the bear-dodging spawning runs of Chinook Salmon.

In the insect world, however, pretty much everything pales in comparison to the daunting voyage of Monarch Butterflies from Central Mexico to Canada and back again. Every year, these tiny, beautiful insects embark on this trip, which takes multiple generations to complete ... except when it doesn't.

At the onset of fall, a single generation of butterflies completes the entire trip back to Mexico, a task that sounds laughably impossible for a featherweight insect with gossamer-delicate, three-inch wings. Yet they do it, every ... single ... year.

The Tennessee Aquarium sits squarely in the middle of the migration route for the eastern population of Monarch Butterflies, making it a prime viewing location for these orange-and-gold beauties as they make their way northward each fall. In this episode, the Aquarium's senior entomologist talks about Monarchs set people's hearts a-flutter, the biological processes that allow them to undertake their unbelievable trip and steps society is taking to protect Monarchs from the greatest threat of all: us.

Episode Cast

• Casey Phillips, host, senior communications specialist and butterfly adorant
• Rose Segbers, senior entomologist

Additional Resources

• The Tennessee Aquarium's Butterfly Garden: https://tnaqua.org/exhibit/butterfly-garden/
• Flight of the Butterflies trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nww3L5b0wno
• Make Way for Monarchs (The Tennessee Conservationist): https://digital.tnconservationist.org/publication/?i=850997&article_id=5026054&view=articleBrowser
• Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation's Project Milkweed: https://xerces.org/milkweed

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.

Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

It’s pretty much inarguable that sharks get a bad rap.

In a given year, a handful of humans are bitten by sharks, and of these, an even smaller number result in serious injuries or fatalities.

Flip the script, however, and sharks are far more likely to be the victims of "human attacks." Most data suggest about 100 MILLION sharks die each year due to intentional harvest, commercial by-catch or other human activity.

Yet despite this decidedly lop-sided relationship, many of us continue to fear sharks due to reports of shark bites that over-emphasize the aggressiveness of these sleek marine predators.

In this episode, Cristina Zenato -- a self-described "shark listener" -- talks about her and other ecologists' quest to understand how sharks behave, a view informed by countless positive interactions with them as a lifelong diver and researcher. She also discusses her role in the new giant-screen film, Shark Kingdom 3D, which is now playing at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater!

View a trailer of Shark Kingdom 3D at: https://youtu.be/YQndv-lBy1g?si=jJybdwvk1VQUKK7b

To purchase tickets to see the film at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater , visit https://tnaqua.org/imax

Learn more about Cristina's educational nonprofit, People of the Water, at http://pownonprofit.org/

Episode Cast

• Casey Phillips, host, senior communications specialist and shark admirer
• Cristina Zenato, ocean and cave explorer, shark behaviorist and ecologist, speaker, writer and conservationist

The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.

Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at https://tnconservationist.org

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

At the Aquarium, we have animals of all sorts, from the beautiful and benign to graceful and powerful. Some of our residents could even, in some circumstances, be considered "dangerous."

How, then, do you see to the needs of species whose adaptations present a serious risk to their caretakers? What tools do you need? What mindset do you have to adopt?

In this episode, three caretakers of animals such as Electric Eels, Pacific Sea Nettles, American Alligators and ... River Otters? ... talk about how they approach ensuring the health of animals that pose a risk to theirs.

Episode Cast

• Casey Phillips, host, senior communications specialist, penguin bite survivor
• Jennifer McPheeters, lead animal care specialist (River Journey building)
• Kimberly Hurt, senior aquarist
• Rachel Thayer, assistant curator of fishes

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The Podcast Aquatic is made possible by support from The Tennessee Conservationist, the official magazine of Tennessee State Parks.

Printed sustainably on 100% post-consumer recycled paper with UV ink, each issue is filled with fascinating stories about Tennessee’s native species, rich history, and unique culture. It’s also your guide to exploring state parks and planning your next outdoor adventure.

Become a Tennessee Conservationist and subscribe at tnconservationist.org.

Join other conservation enthusiasts and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.