Homosassa State Park

Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in Homosassa Springs, Florida. It is home to 6 female manatees who cannot be re-introduced to the wild but have become a large tourist attraction. It is also home to many other animals such as a hippo named Lu, alligators, a bobcat and several species of birds.
When we first arrived at the park we waited in line for a boat to take us across a bit of water. After watching the first boat fill up, we realized that it would likely be faster to drive around the water and park on the other side than wait for the next one. So that is exactly what we did. I am writing this so that if you visit yourself, you just drive to the second entrance.
The first thing we did was watch the manatee program. A woman told us about manatees and specifically the six in the park and then they fed them entire heads of lettuce. You could also view the manatees from under the water, though the longer they ate and swam around, the dirtier the water got and therefore the harder it was to view them.
Once the manatee program was done, we toured the park and viewed the other animals. It happened to be Lu the Hippo's 50th birthday and he received a cake to eat and a tire to play with. For that reason he spent most of the day on the bottom of his pond playing with and chewing on his new tire. He came up for air once in a while, but he really didn't care about the tourists that day, and he was therefore not very photogenic.
Alligators on the other hand are incredibly photogenic as they really just sit in one spot, rarely moving an inch. I learned later on in the trip that alligators are at every park in Florida as you can pretty much just open the gates and they will come in. The same can be said about most wild birds.This crane for example was not a resident of the park, just a daily visitor during feeding time. He did, however, still act like it was his territory and puffed up as the other birds got close to him and his food spot.We watched the bird get fed as well, though this was a far smellier event - and louder too. The typical Florida shorebirds were there: ibis, cranes, pelicans, flamingos, etc, all just waiting to have their photo taken. The only thing that hindered this trip was the weather. It didn't rain but it was fairly chilly and walking in the shady woods was a little uncomfortable. That being said, it was still a really nice park and another great example of the rehabilitation efforts going on in this state.

Clearwater Aquarium

As its name suggests, the Clearwater Aquarium is located in Clearwater, Florida. It is a home for rescued dolphins, sea turtles and otters. It is also home to various fish, stingray and nurse sharks. The most famous resident is Winter, who is a female dolphin who got tangled in a fishing net so badly that her tail eventually fell off. She learned how to swim without using a side-to-side motion similar to a shark rather than the up and down motion normal to dolphins, but as the muscle use was so different, a prosthetic tail was made for her. It is put on her a few hours a day but she uses the shark-motion otherwise.While we were there we saw the feeding of a sea turtle who had air in her shell and could therefore not dive under the water. There were also sea turtles at the aquarium who were missing fins mostly from motor boats, but also from sharks and other predators.We waited a little bit for the dolphin show which was really awesome. They told us about the four dolphins that live at the aquarium (for various reasons) and the methods in place to help return dolphins to the wild when they are injured or beached. They also had the dolphins perform for us which was really neat.The aquarium is about $13 to enter (for adults). I thought the entertainment alone was worth the money, let alone the rescue efforts they perform on a regular basis. I really like it despite its small size.
(Winter and her prosthetic tail image found through Google as she wasn't in a posing mode when we visited the aquarium.)

Transparent Fish

This 'weird fish with transparent head' was first discovered in 1939, but has only recently been found alive. The image was taken in 2004 but was just released in February, 2009 and published on the National Geographic website. It was taken by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in the deep waters off California's central coast. Its name is barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) and as you can see, its forehead is similar to a cockpit. It is completely transparent enabling you to see its inner workings. What you would think were eyes at the front of its head are actually smell sensors. The eyes are tubes (or barrels - hence barreleye) that lie under the green domes in its head. The domes themselves are used to filter out the small amounts of light that reaches down into the deep, dark waters it calls home.
(information and image found at National Geographic)