Slime

Explore this bright and interactive area and learn about some of the animals who use slime to move around, catch their prey or create a poisonous mucus.

Discover which animals use poison or venom, and the difference between the two.

Slime is made inside special cells as small packets, which are completely dry, until outside the cell when they break open. They then soak up water quickly and the slime swells up to 100 times its volume. The more water it absorbs, the more slippery it becomes.

Watch as the Clownfish dart in and out of their anemone home and see if you can spot the brightly coloured Blue poison arrow frogs. Play peek-a-boo with our spotty Garden eels as they pop out of their sandy burrows – made with a slimy cement!

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Changing Seas

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Clownfish

Amphiprioninae

Clownfish live within the tentacles of a variety of venomous anemones to form a symbiotic relationship. Their bodies are covered with mucus which protects them from the venom so they can hide from predators within it. In return, the clownfish remove parasites from the anemone.

Garden eel

Heteroconger hassi

They use their strong, muscular tails to dig into the seafloor, then secrete a slimy mucus which acts like cement to keep its burrow from caving in. They spend the majority of their lives partially embedded in the seafloor. There can be hundreds of thousands of eels in just one colony!

Scribbled pipefish

Corythoichthys intestinalis

While pipefish aren't a type of seahorse, they are in the same family group and share many characteristics. Like seahorses, the male pipefish cares for the fertilised eggs in a special brood pouch on their tummy, incubating them until they hatch around two weeks later.

Blue poison arrow frog

Dendrobates tinctorius azureus

These frogs are insectivores. Their diet consists mainly of ants, termites and small spiders. Some indigenous cultures have used poison from the frogs to coat the tip of blow darts before hunting — a tradition that inspired their name.

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