California: Monterey Bay Aquarium

Author Photographing Sardines at Open Seas. “The sea is as near as we come to another world.”

Sea Pen Display

Chambered Nautilus (cousin of the octopus)

Green Moray Eels

Bigfin Reef Squid

Lookdown Fish

Stone Scorpionfish (looking left)

Orange Cup Coral

Southern Sea Otter

Avocet (at least 26 years old)

Marbled Godwit (at least 21 years old)

Black Oystercatcher ( at least 24 years old)

Semipalmated Sandpiper (at least 20 years old)

Beautiful California Coast South of Monterey

We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium at the end of February.  It is always a delight – one of the best aquariums we’ve ever seen!  It is extra special because of its beautiful location on the central California coast.  Although temporarily closed now because of the pandemic, you can visit virtually through these live cams:  https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams. 

Some of the birds at the aquarium are quite old  (https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/stories/the-aviarys-amazing-senior-citizens).  Each one was found injured and unable to be released back into the wild.  They have been happily living their lives in the aviary ever since.  I read that birdwatching and nature is good for the soul and health – agreed!  https://www.healthfitnessrevolution.com/top-10-health-benefits-of-bird-watching/

Monterey Bay Aquarium is Great!

Striped Pyjama Squid

Scrawled Filefish

Sea Gooseberry

Orange Sea Nettles

Baja Tropical Reef Tank

Orange Garibaldi

Sea Otters Sleeping on Beach Nearby at Moss Landing

Sea Otters Returning to Water

Sea Otter and Sea Gull

Raft of Sea Otters

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a wonderful place to visit – it is one of the top aquariums in the country!  It is located on the beautiful California coast south of San Francisco.  Up to 2,000 gallons per minute of fresh sea water constantly flows through the exhibits.  

We especially enjoyed seeing a recent display featuring the striped pyjama squid.  These shy cuttlefish have never been shown in the United States before now.  More info is at:  https://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/138692614238/were-geeking-out-over-the-newest-addition-to-our

Animators from Pixar Studios visited the aquarium before animation began on the movie “Finding Dory”.  They studied octopus, sea otters, and shorebirds in detail.  That attention to detail shines through in the film, and hopefully inspires a new generation of children to love the ocean too!

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Wild Baby Sea Otter Born in Outdoor Tidepool

Holiday e-Card by Monterey Bay Aquarium

A wild baby sea otter was born in the outdoor tidepool at Monterey Bay Aquarium, California, on December 20, 2015.  The cutest present to the Aquarium ever!  The mother and pup have direct access to the ocean and are free to come and go as they please.  Links and adorable pictures are at:

http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/135606363553/the-squee-heard-round-the-world

http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/135726438723/wild-otter-mom-and-pup-update

The picture above was posted online by the Aquarium on Christmas Day:  http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/135916080178/may-your-holiday-season-be-warm-and-bright-thank

UPDATE March 5, 2016:  Another wild mother sea otter gave birth in the Monterey Bay Aquarium tidepool!  Read about it and watch video at:  https://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/140578637168/welcome-to-the-world-little-otter

Monterey Bay Aquarium is the Best!

Leopard Shark in Kelp Forest

Rockfish in Kelp Forest

Pink Fish-Eating Anemones

Pink-Tipped Green Elegant Anemone

Sand Dollar Bubble Tank

Open Sea Exhibit with Sea Turtle

Sea Turtle Swimming

Spotted Comb Jelly

Transparent Moon Jelly

Stinging Sea Nettle Jellyfish

Fluorescent Coral

Monterey Bay Aquarium in California has the best exhibits!  It has been rated best in the nation for kids.  Ocean life is rich and diverse, and the creatures that live there are utterly fascinating.  I can never get enough!  All of our posts featuring Monterey Bay Aquarium are at:   https://naturetime.wordpress.com/category/california/northern-california/monterey-bay-area/monterey-bay-aquarium/

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Fantastic Tentacles Exhibit!

 

Tentacles Entrance Sign

Tentacles Exhibit Sign

Tentacles “Myths Prevailed” Display

Octopus Attacking Golden Gate Bridge in 1955 Movie “It Came from Beneath the Sea”

Tentacles “Early Influences” Display

Octopus Petroglyph, Easter Island, Chile

“Night of the Ammonites”, Ray Troll, 1998

“Colossal Octopus” Pen and Wash Drawing, 1803

“Gamochonia” Octopus Scientific Illustration by Ernst Haeckel

Minoan Vessel with Octopus Motif, Crete, 9th Century BC

Giant Pacific Octopus 1

Giant Pacific Octopus 2

Giant Pacific Octopus 3

Mechanical Octopus Display

Bigfin Reef Squid

Broadclub Cuttlefish

Stumpy Cuttlefish

Purple and Yellow Australian Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Chambered Nautilus

Squid Eggs

Richard’s Cephalopod Selfie Video taken at Tentacles Exhibit

We just got back from a visit to California, and tremendously enjoyed seeing the new Tentacles Exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  The exhibit features animals in the cephalopod family, including octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus.  They are masters of disguise and quick color change artists – it has to be seen to be believed!(http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/how-octopuses-and-squids-change-color)

Octopus are known for their intelligence (https://orionmagazine.org/article/deep-intellect/), and are said to be as smart as cats.  Each one has its own unique personality.  Octopus recognize and greet their favorite people (and sometimes they deliberately squirt people they do not like).  A link to one of my favorite pictures posted last year by the aquarium is at:  http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/17955182992/why-were-so-attached-to-the-giant-pacific 

A few years ago one of the night watchmen at the Monterey Bay Aquarium saw an octopus crawling on the floor.  Apparently at night it would leave its tank and travel to other tanks for a midnight snack!  That solved the mystery of the missing fish.  More info about the Giant Pacific Octopus is at:  http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animal-guide/octopus-and-kin/giant-pacific-octopus 

The Tentacles Exhibit is the best!  More info about these amazing animals is at:  http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals-and-experiences/exhibits/tentacles  As usual, click on any of the pictures in the post to enlarge and get more detailed information.

UPDATE:  An amazing video and pictures of squid egg cases are at this link:  http://deepseanews.com/2015/03/whats-this-viral-video-mystery-blob-hint-its-not-a-pyrosome/

An outstanding book to read is by Sy Montgomery – “The Soul of an Octopus:  A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness”, 2016.

Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola)

Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) at Monterey Bay Aquarium

Closeup of Ocean Sunfish

Monterey Bay Aquarium occasionally has an ocean sunfish (Mola mola) on display in the Open Sea Exhibit.  These fantastic fish have fins at the top and bottom, and a flattened tail at the back.  They can get up to 10 feet long and weigh over 5,000 pounds.  They increase their weight by 60 million times over their lifetime!  Fast growth means that each ocean sunfish at the aquarium is only on display for about a year.  At that point the fish must be airlifted out of the tank by helicopter to its freedom in Monterey Bay.  Adult females can produce over one million eggs per spawning season!

Ocean sunfish are related to pufferfish, and feast on jellyfish in the deep ocean.  After diving they like to float sideways at the surface, basking in the warmth of the sun. They are famous for being very curious and approaching divers, and are found in temperate and tropical waters worldwide.  More info is at: http://www.oceansunfish.org/index.php

Monterey Bay Aquarium: An All-Time Favorite!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Entrance

Open Seas Exhibit

Sardines in Kelp Forest

Grass Rockfish

Pacific Marine Life

Strawberry Anemone

Pacific Seahorse

Leafy Sea Dragon

Blue Spotted Jelly

Sea Nettles

Back Deck Overlooking Pacific

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the best aquariums in the world!  It is a place that we return to again and again.  It is mesmerizing watching the sea creatures on display.  A wonderful quote at the aquarium says “The sea is as near as we come to another world”.  I highly recommend a visit – it never fails to impress.  More info about the aquarium is at:  http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/ 

More of our posts and pictures on the Monterey Bay Aquarium are at:  http://winegarpics.com/category/california/northern-california/monterey-bay-area/monterey-bay-aquarium/   

Info on a surreal and fascinating jellyfish new to science found in 2016 near the Mariana Trench (the deepest part of the ocean) is at:  http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2016/05/video-surreal-deep-sea-jellyfish-near-mariana-trench

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Outer Bay/Open Sea Exhibit

Monterey Bay Aquarium – Outer Bay/Open Sea Exhibit Window

The window at the Outer Bay /Open Sea Exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is massive!  Standing in front of it is like scuba diving without getting wet!  At night a wall of bubbles obscures the window so that the fish don’t run into it in the dark.  We arrived at the window before the bubbles were turned off for the day.  The beautiful blue color of the exhibit comes from the blue tiles covering its walls – over 1.6 million tiles were used! 

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Draw Your Own Digital Jelly

Draw Your Own Digital Jelly Touchscreens and Wall-Size Virtual Ocean

Touchscreen to Draw Jelly

Touchscreen to E-mail Jelly Link

Richard’s Digital Jelly Swimming in a Virtual Ocean

Pam’s Digital Jelly Swimming in a Virtual Ocean

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Jellies Experience Exhibit, you can use a touch screen to draw your own digital jelly and launch it into a wall-size virtual ocean. You can also use the touchscreen to e-mail your jelly link. This display is irresistible and very popular!  

UPDATE December 2015:  Videos of digital jellies swimming in a virtual ocean are no longer available online since the special exhibit has been closed. 

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Glowing Jellies and Corals

Flower Hat Jellies

Button Polyps

Glowing Coral

Tiny Elegant Jelly

Fluorescent Jelly Proteins Display

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, jellies and corals in the Light Show Gallery can be seen brightly glowing under special lights as a result of fluorescence and bioluminescence. Scientists use fluorescent jelly proteins for laboratory research and diagnostics. Richard has used glowing jelly proteins in his own research. The protein was famously used in the year 2000 by French geneticists to create a rabbit named Alba whose hair glowed green under ultraviolet light. For those especially interested in science, check out this new article on the world’s first artificial jellyfish at Harvard University that is being used to study pumping of the heart muscle:   http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22088-heart-muscle-helps-cyborg-jellyfish-come-alive.html

Monterey Bay Aquarium: Delicate and Beautiful Jellies

Spotted Jellies

Upside Down Jellies

Egg Yolk Jelly

Blubber Jellies

Crown Jelly

Moon Jellies

Indonesian Sea Nettles

Crystal Jelly

The new Jellies Experience Exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is outstanding!  Jellyfish are extremely delicate and beautiful.  Their bodies are 95% water.  They are a main source of food for sea turtles and ocean sunfish.  Some jellies sting as a defense and as a way to collect food, so always be careful around them.   An excellent article about how Monterey Bay Aquarium grows its jellies for display is at:  http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-to-grow-a-jellyfish/

Weedy Sea Dragon with Eggs

Sea Dragon with Eggs at Monterey Bay Aquarium

Sea Dragon with Eggs Illustration

We got extra lucky at the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week and saw a male weedy sea dragon with eggs. The male sea dragon doesn’t have a pouch like sea horses. Instead he has a tail that grows cup-like crevices for the eggs. He watches over the eggs until the baby sea dragons swim away. Note that the picture was very difficult to take because of the round glass of the tank.  UPDATE August 6, 2012:  The weedy sea dragon Dad and his 80 babies are now being cared for behind the scenes!  Success!

Monterey Bay Aquarium: New Jellies Experience is the BEST!

Jellies Experience Entrance

Tubes of Moon Jellies

Moon Jellies Lamps

Jellyfish Polyps Lamps

Comb Jelly Walk-Through Light

Beautiful Comb Jellies

Crown Jelly Lamp

Jellyfish Mod Wall

Glowing Jellyfish Seat and Wall Art

The new Jellies Experience Exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is the BEST!  It is one of my ALL-TIME favorites!  I particularly enjoyed the exhibit’s “mod” feel and cool lighting.   

I remember when the Monterey Bay Aquarium debuted their wildly popular “Planet of the Jellies” in 1992, they enhanced the mood of the exhibit with a wall of lava lamps (the “lava” looked like jellies swimming).  In 2018 it was announced that the cybersecurity firm Cloudflare in San Francisco uses a similar wall of lava lamps to encrypt the internet.  It turns out that the randomness of the lava’s movement is so unpredictable that it is much more secure than randomly generated code.  Read more at:  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/encryption-lava-lamps

UPDATE August 2016:  The aquarium has now figured out the best way to raise comb jellies.  It all comes down to what the baby jellies eat.  You can read about it at: https://futureoftheocean.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/untangling-comb-jelly-culture/?utm_source=AugustEnews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-enews    

You can watch a video about shimmering rainbow comb jellies at:  https://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/34849426540/checked-out-our-comb-jellies-these-beautiful

Monterey Bay Aquarium Giant Plumed Anemones

Giant Plumed Anemones

This picture shows giant plumed anemones at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  These 3-foot-tall anemones can live over 100 years!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Pens

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Pens

Sea pens anchor themselves onto the sea floor and use their feathery plumes to catch food drifting by on the ocean currents.  They glow blue-green when disturbed!  Sea pens are related to corals and anemones, and live in the Monterey Canyon.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Weedy Sea Dragon

 

Weedy Sea Dragon

This weedy sea dragon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is beautiful!  Sea dragons are native to Australia, and are famous for elaborate mating dances.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Otters Kit and Mae

Sea Otters Kit (left) and Mae (right)

Baby Sea Otter Kit

In January 2010, a 5-week-old baby sea otter was seen crying and trying to climb on mother sea otters at Morro Bay.  The abandoned baby sea otter was rescued by staff at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  In February 2010, baby Kit became the youngest sea otter every put on display at the aquarium. 

Kit was paired with a foster mother named Mae.  Although Mae had never been a mother before, she instantly bonded with the pup.  Mae slept, ate, and played with her new companion.  Kit mimicked everything Mae did, including sucking her left paw while she sleeps!  Now Kit is grown up and has joined Mae in being a companion for other rescued sea otters.

Here is a link to a livecam view of the sea otter exhibit:

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals-and-experiences/live-web-cams/sea-otter-cam

Here is a link to Kit and other sea otter stories at the aquarium:

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals-and-experiences/exhibits/sea-otters

UPDATE:  Mae passed away in November 2012.  A news story is at:  http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/36080292879/mae-first-otter-to-raise-a-pup-on-exhibit-dies

Monterey Bay Aquarium Cuttlefish

Monterey Bay Aquarium Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish are on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Cuttlefish are very intelligent, have excellent eye sight, and are related to the octopus. They are known as chameleons of the sea, and can instantly change color and pattern.   Cuttlefish can pulse patterns of color to hypnotize their prey! 

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sanderling

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sanderling

This sanderling lives in the aviary at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Most sanderlings live 5 years in the wild, but this happy bird is 22 years old!  Sanderlings can be seen running on the beach hunting for food as the tide goes in and out.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Oystercatcher

Monterey Bay Aquarium Oystercatcher

This oystercatcher is on display in the aviary at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Oystercatchers live along the rocky coast and eat oysters, clams, and snails.  Their call is a high pitched whistle that can be heard above the ocean waves.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sand Dollars

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sand Dollars

Sand dollars are on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  They are covered in purple spines.  During a storm, they swallow sand to weigh themselves down onto the sea floor.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Colorful Clams

Monterey Bay Aquarium Blue Clam

Monterey Bay Aquarium Green and Yellow Clams

Clams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium are very colorful.  Giant clams of the South Pacific can reach up to 4 feet long and weigh up to 500 pounds!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Burrowing Anemones

Monterey Bay Aquarium Burrowing Anemones

Burrowing anemones at the Monterey Bay Aquarium are very colorful.  Their arms capture food drifting by on the ocean currents, and their tube-like bodies extend two feet down into the sand.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seahorse Exhibit

Monterey Bay Aquarium Leafy Sea Dragon

The seahorse exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is spectacular!  Over 15 species of seahorse are displayed – one of the nation’s largest collections. Seahorses have heads like horses, tails like monkeys, and pouches like kangaroos. The male seahorse carries eggs in his pouch.  After the eggs hatch, the babies stay in his pouch until they are old enough to swim away.  This picture shows a leafy sea dragon (closely related to seahorses and in the same family Synganthidae).  Male sea dragons carry eggs under their tails.  Everything in this picture is sea dragon, not seaweed!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Kiss

Monterey Bay Aquarium Kiss

This picture shows a silhouette of a couple kissing in front of the orange jellyfish tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  In this romantic scene, he gave her a ring and asked her to marry him.  She said yes, and they kissed!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Moon Jellies

Round Moon Jelly Tank

Moon Jellies

Behind the Scenes Tanks for Growing Jellyfish

Moon jellies are on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Since jellyfish are so sensitive and delicate, the aquarium had to design special round tanks to hold them. Water currents must be extra gentle, so the jellies don’t get trapped in the corners or at the bottom of the tank. Moon jellies went into orbit on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1991 as part of a study on weightlessness.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Outer Bay/Open Sea Exhibit

 

Monterey Bay Aquarium Outer Bay Exhibit

This picture shows the Outer Bay/Open Sea Exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It is one of the largest tanks in the world!  The main viewing window is 56.5 feet long, 17 feet tall, and 13 inches thick.  The window weighs 78,000 pounds, and was lowered into place by a specially built crane.  Fresh ocean water from the Pacific is constantly circulated throughout the 1.3 million gallon exhibit.  The Outer Bay animals eat half a ton of food per week!