In the part of Mote Marine that visitors see, three-foot-long bonnethead sharks show off in a multi-windowed tank.
In a nearby shallow pool, Atlantic stingrays, whose barbs have been snipped to make them safe enough for a toddler to touch, circle endlessly.
Beyond the employees-only door, research scientists headed by Carl A. Luer have spent decades studying the miraculous ways in which bonnetheads defend themselves from cancer, and the way in which Atlantic stingrays and related species grow their own antibiotics.
It is quite possible that a child touching a stingray at Mote today could someday be saved by an antibiotic or an anti-cancer medicine that originated there.
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Photo by MyFWCmedia 
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