In what was a record high turnout, more than 500 people made their way to Pivers Island on Saturday Aug. 1, for the Duke University Marine Lab’s annual open house. Visitors listened to whales, peered at plankton and sea urchin larvae through microscopes, and learned how salinity gradients and wind can drive ocean currents at 16 research stations scattered throughout the campus. Kids of all ages also got to meet horse conchs, pen shell clams, tulip snails, fiddler crabs, slipper snails and other creatures in the marine lab’s touch tanks. “We don’t think of snails as having teeth but they really do; that radula is quite a weapon. It’s like a cross between a chainsaw and a tongue,” said Duke visiting professor Jim Welch. Photos by Amy Chapman-Braun, Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke.