Texas State Aquarium offers a look at unique animals

The baby alligator didn't even squirm.

With its head held high and unmoving, it stoically allowed staff at The Brownsville Herald to hold it, touch it, poke it, peer at it and awe at its patience.

The 1-year-old American alligator named Elle, from the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, arrived for a visit Wednesday, along with a turtle from South America and a Brazilian black tarantula.

Elle came in her finest with the distinctive yellow bands, which mark her body, while the turtle wore splashes of coral under the shell.

The aquarium's Curator of Fishes, Jesse Gilbert, and his wife, Emma Gilbert, the aquarium's lead marine mammal trainer, who primarily trains dolphins, handled the visiting animals.

"We have a blast," Emma Gilbert said of the yearly visits to communities throughout the state to promote the aquarium. Boas and pythons didn't make this trip.

"Adults turn into big kids," Jesse Gilbert said of the interaction with animals that transcends age.

"Everybody in the Valley was very hospitable," he added.

The Gilberts were accompanied by Kirstin Ralls, the aquarium's director of marketing and communications, who noted that the animals are among thousands representing more than 250 species on display at the aquarium.

The aquarium's exhibit highlights include Dolphin Bay, Tortuga Cay, Hawn Wild Flight Theater, Islands of Steel, Eagle Pass, Flower Gardens, Amazon, Otter Creek, Living Shores, Floating Phantoms and Swamp Tales.

The aquarium's newest exhibit is Eagle Pass, which showcases raptors, including a bald eagle named Grace and other wildlife rescued and rehabilitated at the aquarium.

And as Herald staff members closed in to better view or hold the tarantula, alligator and turtle or hid behind other staff member's shoulders, shying away from the tarantula, one can only wonder what the animals were seeing.