MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 21: A Snow Globe Jelly swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new “Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean” exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibition is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
Armor-plated pill bugs the size of dinner plates. Pulsating red jellyfish that look like beating hearts. Bone-eating worms that consume whale carcasses. Loopy coral seemingly drawn by Dr. Seuss.
The menagerie seems more fitting for a science fiction movie in outer space than something that lives nearby. Yet the bizarre creatures swim in Monterey Bay and other parts of the world’s oceans — often thousands of feet below the surface in pitch-black, cold waters under immense pressure.
After spending years trying to figure out how to collect deep-sea creatures with unmanned robots and keep them alive in captivity, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is preparing to open a new exhibition revealing what lives below the mysterious depths of the world’s oceans down to 10,000 feet below the surface.
The new $15 million attraction, called “Into the Deep,” opens April 9 at the aquarium on Cannery Row, which was funded by Silicon Valley tech pioneer David Packard 40 years ago. As much an ode to the technology of marine exploration as to the poetic magnificence of some of the planet’s most unusual life, the exhibition features animals that scientists have only recently discovered, and many which have never been shown before in aquariums anywhere in North America.
“The deep sea is the world’s biggest habitat, but one of the least familiar,” said Stephen Palumbi, a marine biologist at Stanford University unaffiliated with the exhibition. “It’s dark and cold and deep, and there is very little food. Yet the animals there are beautiful and delicate and luminous with their own light. Bringing them to the surface is like us sending astronauts to space.”
A bloody belly comb jelly swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new “Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean” exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibition is the largest in North America focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
When Packard, an electrical engineer who co-founded Hewlett Packard, and his wife, Lucile, donated $55 million to construct the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the 1980s, the goal was to showcase Central California’s rich marine life, from sea otters to kelp forests, a longtime interest of the Packard family.
But personally, David Packard was keenly interested in advancing the science of marine exploration. With a $13 million donation in 1987 he founded MBARI — the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute — 20 miles north in Moss Landing. Since then, MBARI’s scientists have discovered more than 200 ocean species using research ships, robotic subs, underwater chemistry labs and other cutting-edge gear.
Few other major ocean research centers in the world, including Woods Hole in Massachusetts and Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, have a world-class aquarium on their doorstep as a partner. Most of the animals in the Monterey aquarium’s new deep-sea exhibition were collected by MBARI scientists, who now marvel at the ability of aquarium curators to keep them alive in captivity.
A Mauve Stinger swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new “Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean” exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
George Matsumoto, a marine biologist at MBARI, discovered a new species of jellyfish in 2003, the bloody belly comb jelly. Magenta red and pulsating, it looks like a floating jewel in its new tank at the aquarium. But it is remarkably fragile.
“If the aquarium had asked me if that was a good candidate to put in a tank in an exhibition, I would have said don’t even try,” Matsumoto said. “When I was doing research, we would collect it, and I would be looking at it on the ship in the collection container, and it would melt and turn the water red. I described it using frame grabs from a video. I never had an intact specimen. I never saw it under a microscope. It was so sensitive to temperature change, I thought it couldn’t be displayed.
“But luckily, they went ahead and did it,” he said. “They have it on display here, and it’s gorgeous. It’s something people have never seen. The number of people in the world who have seen one alive in a container on a ship is probably less than two dozen, until this exhibition opens.”
The exhibition takes sea water from Monterey Bay, filters it and refreshes it in the tanks roughly every hour. The water for the deep sea creatures is chilled to 39 degrees Fahrenheit. A maze of tubes, membranes and pumps uses nitrogen to reduce the oxygen level to 3% of the surface water, to mimic the conditions more than a mile below the sea.
Matsumoto said understanding more about the world’s oceans is important not just in inspiring the next generation of scientists but also in helping to protect the undersea world from climate change, plastic pollution and other environmental changes.
“We are trying to learn how the ocean works,” he said, “hopefully before our tinkering gets out of control.”
Beth Redmond-Jones, vice president of Exhibitions at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, demonstrates how an interactive display works at the aquarium’s new “Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean” exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
Some things researchers cannot yet do. The more than 50 species exhibited are able to live at deep pressures and at surface pressure. Although MBARI and a few other scientific institutions in Japan and France have been able to bring up deep sea fish and other species that live only under immense pressure, exhibiting them to the public in an aquarium is not yet possible. Tanks have to be cleaned, animals have to be fed.
Among the marquee attractions at “Into the Deep” are the pink corals that live on deep-sea underwater mountains, and sea angels, tiny Day-Glo critters that are a type of swimming snail with wings. Giant spider crabs from Japan, which look like the face-hugging monster from the movie Alien, complete with legs 10 feet across, fill another tank.
The exhibition will be around for eight years and will change as MBARI researchers bring up new species.
“A lot of people think of these animals as scary, creepy or alien,” said Beth Redmond-Jones, the aquarium’s vice president of exhibitions and facilities. “But they aren’t. They are beautiful and elegant and really mysterious. It’s exciting to be able to show all of this to visitors and get them engaged with this whole other world.”
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MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Sea Angel swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Snow Globe Jelly swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibition is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Bloody-Belly Comb Jelly swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Animal Care team member Ellen Umeda feeds jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in a water control room in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Japanese spider crabs crawl in their tanks that features a replica of a whale skull at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Salmon Snailfish swim in their tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: George Matsumoto, Senior Education & Research Specialist for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, talks about the interactive display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A basket starfish is photographed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Red Paper Lantern Jellyfish swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
A Mauve Stinger swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibition in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Japanese spider crab crawls past the replica of a whale skull in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Brian Maurer, Manager of Life Support Systems at Monterey Bay Aquarium, talks about the water system for the aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in a control room in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A Red-X Jelly swims in its tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Animal Care team member Ellen Umeda feeds jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in a water control room in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: A giant deep-sea isopod is photographed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: Beth Redmond-Jones, Vice President of Exhibitions for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, looks at sardines at the entrants of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The sardines show sea life near the service before visitors continue through the exhibition viewing deep-sea life. The new exhibit is the largest in North America. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 21: An Octopus is seen in a sign at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new "Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean" exhibit in Monterey, Calif., on Monday, March 21, 2022. The new exhibit is the largest in North America, focusing on deep-sea life. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)
