Aquarium's 'Meet the Fish Scientist' Event Attended by Zero Children, Fourteen Adults With Very Specific Questions

The Oceanview Aquarium's 'Meet the Fish Scientist' event, designed to introduce children to marine biology, was attended on Saturday by zero children and fourteen adults, twelve of whom arrived with pre-prepared questions about gill raker morphology. 'We had a coloring station,' said events coordinator Megan Plankton. 'We had goldfish crackers. We had a puppet show about how fish breathe. And then fourteen grown men and women showed up with binders.' The featured scientist, Dr. Alicia Pelagic, had prepared a twenty-minute presentation titled 'Fish Are Cool!' with colorful slides and animated gifs. She was interrupted forty-seven seconds in by an attendee who asked her to 'skip ahead to the cladistics.' 'I tried to redirect to kid-friendly content,' Dr. Pelagic said. 'But there were no kids. It was just me and fourteen people who knew more about perciform phylogenetics than I do.' The Q&A session, originally allocated fifteen minutes, lasted two hours and seventeen minutes. Topics included the validity of the Percomorpha clade, whether cichlids deserve their own order, and a prolonged argument between two attendees about whether lungfish are fish. 'They're literally called lungfish,' said one attendee. 'The word fish is in the name,' responded the other. 'That doesn't make them fish. Jellyfish aren't fish either. Starfish aren't fish. Silverfish aren't fish.' Dr. Pelagic eventually ended the event by turning off the projector and announcing that the aquarium was closing, which was technically true. 'I went into marine biology to inspire the next generation,' she said afterward. 'Instead, I was cross-examined by the current generation for two hours about gill raker counts. I need a drink.'