Tentacles At Monterey

The last time I was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, there was a seahorse exhibit. Well, in April it became a Tentacles exhibit, which included squid, octopi, cuttlefish, and nautili. I've been wanting to see it for months. This past weekend a whole group of us piled into a car and headed out to Monterey. The first stop was to pick up lunch, then head out to the beach to eat. (I loaned my camera to Jay to play with, so some of the pictures were taken by him, including this beach one. Extra points if you can spot me.)

Photo credit to Jay

After lunch we headed out to the aquarium. In this exhibit, the fish (mackerel I think) always are swimming in a circle. Except on this day some of them got real confused. It was interesting to watch a bunch of fish swim at and away from each other. Eventually the head of the pack sorted things out and everyone went back to swimming in a circle.

After seeing an exhibit or two, we finally reached the Tentacles exhibit. (And I took my camera back for a bit) This guy was eating a fish. The fish head was sticking out past his tentacles.

After the squid came the octopi. I wasn't able to get very good pictures of them. They all seemed to know that they were in tanks and didn't want to be there. I'm going to guess that the octopi were the smartest of the tentacles bunch. After the octopi came the nautili. It was fun watching them swim about using their tube structure. The ones that were resting seemed to be using their tube as a suction cup. This guy was definitely sticking to the glass.

I noticed that the cuttlefish had the same tube structure hiding under their tentacles as the nautili. They seemed to just be nautili without shells. Also, these guys have the most interesting eyelids. It was strange watching them blink.

After the tentacles exhibit we had a look at the jellyfish one. There is 1960's style music playing throughout. Jason said that there ought to be a rule that in order to see the exhibit, you had to wave your arms around kind of like a jellyfish. There were games in that exhibit as well. After three shorter children left, three bigger children took over.

Jason, Elaine, and Connor: The big kids

One of the displayed jellyfish were the upside down jellies. We all thought that there were the least intelligent of the jellyfish world. They worked pretty hard to stay upside down. Everyone but Connor had been to this aquarium and I thought he might get the biggest kick out of these guys. Little did we know that he's seen them up close and personal. I'm pleased to say that I've never gotten stung by one of these guys and now I know not to go to the Florida Keys and walk around in the water if I want it to stay that way.

Photo credit to Jay

As we left, I asked Jay to take one last photo. We had seen these blow up tentacles coming in and I knew I needed a picture with me and my tentacle arms. As Jay lined up the shot, I said, "I need someone to fear me!"

 Fear my wrath, Jason!

The evening ended with a meal at Bubba Gump's where the waiter stumped us with Forrest Gump trivia and I nearly stumped him with a question. All in all, it was a great day.

Day At The Monterey Bay Aquarium

In late August, Rachael and I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I hadn't been in nearly 10 years and there was a seahorse exhibit that was nearly over. I didn't know that there were so many kinds of seahorses. Our favorite one was the Leafy Seadragon. It honestly looked like kelp, especially when it had it's head pointing downward. Not to mention, it was large. I'd only ever seen small seahorses, but this guy was close to a foot long.

There was a baby Loggerhead Turtle. We didn't realize until seeing this guy that the displays have two-way glass. When the various creatures are looking at you, they are really looking at their own reflection.

The aquarium does a fair amount of rescue and rehabilitation. In the aviary, there are a number of birds with broken winds or hurt legs. Birds that can be released eventually are. We learned from one of the workers that most of the birds here no longer can fly, but it's because they are fed so well that they are too fat to take flight.

Some of the displays can make you feel quite small. This is a school of anchovies. (I'm pretty sure these were the anchovies.)

And it is amazing how close you can get to some of the different creatures. This guy is a Leopard Shark. He kept circling the tank. I'd never seen a shark with eyes like his.

But my favorite thing to look at is the jellyfish display. It always has, and it probably always will be. I took a gazillion pictures, but I'll not overwhelm you guys with them all.
My favorite David Attenborough documentary is the The Blue Planet: The Deep. I'm pretty sure this guy shows up in it. (I think it is a ctenophore.) It doesn't actually shine light. It has cilia that reflects light.

Near the display was a set of lamps that were made to look like moon jellyfish. When I showed Mum this picture, she thought they were really jellyfish. I wish I could have a lamp like this in my room.

Especially because Moon Jellyfish are my personal favorite jellyfish.