Virginia Living Museum
Cold Water Stream

The Virginia Living Museum has two large habitariums, both of which include live birds, plants, reptiles, amphibians, and many species of fishes, all thriving in accurate living replicas of their respective habitats. While the challenges of a living three-dimensional exhibit are daunting, the rewards are truly beautiful and rewarding.

Our Mountain Cove exhibit includes a cross section of a babbling brook filled with over twenty species of native stream fishes. Amidst the cobbles and stones, living jewels dance in the current and dart about; still many more are revealed to the patient onlooker.

Several species of darters thrive in the cold swift water, including the striking red-line darter who more than lives up to its name. Males have royal blue chests and bold red dashes along their flanks and trimming their fins; a garish display sure to entice even the most discerning female darter.

Another male dressed to impress is the central stoneroller. Displaying brawn over beauty, the male stoneroller develops an impressive array of hard spiky nodules, called tubercles, covering its head and body. Many other species of chubs, minnows and daces also develop such growths during mating season.

Sculpins may not garner as much attention as their more flamboyant stream-mates, but are impressive nonetheless. Sculpins are secretive dwellers of the dark spaces beneath boulders and between rocks. These aggressive predators scurry out to snatch prey with large jaws and an appetite to match. Several generations of sculpins reside in the stream after years of successful breeding. A careful and patient eye may catch a glimpse of younger sculpins born earlier this year, not yet as reclusive as their parents.

And no stream would be complete without a variety of minnows and daces jockeying for position midstream. These gregarious fishes create a living mosaic of silver, black, and red in a swirl of activity; just some of many treasures that lie hidden between the stones and dancing in plain view inside our mountain stream exhibit.