Touch Tank

The Touch Tank offers hands-on encounters with horseshoe crabs, sea stars, whelks, and other coastal invertebrates. Trained interpreters guide visitors through proper touching techniques while explaining the biology and ecology of these fascinating marine animals.

Horseshoe crabs are living fossils that have remained virtually unchanged for over 450 million years — predating dinosaurs by 200 million years. Their blue blood contains a substance used to test medical equipment for bacterial contamination, making them invaluable to human medicine as well as to the coastal ecosystems they inhabit.