Today we spent about 40 minutes doing an external examination of the salmon.  From looking for nostrils to noticing the lateral line and the scales, who knew the exterior of a salmon could be so interesting.  Did you know that salmon have the same number of scales when they are fry (the stage that they are currently at in our tanks) as they do in their adult stage?  Did you know that scales will regrow if lost and that scales have rings like a tree?  You can count their age by looking at the bands of rings on them.

Then we moved on to an internal dissection.  It was super interesting.  From finding out if our salmon was male or female, to finding out the size of his brain.

Along the way, we used a graphic of the human body and compared the salmon’s anatomy to ours.  We asked questions such as: why is the heart located near the lungs?  What are the ‘lungs’ of a fish?  In the salmon, where do you expect the heart to be? What part of the human body is most like fish scales? What is the importance of slime?  Do fish have ears?  What a fun day!