| Monterey has one of the best marine aquariums on the west coast,
and the queues to get in merely highlight the fact. Having said that, the
fish include some of the ugliest. This one kept flying across the face of
its tank and was very hard to catch. |  |
 | The depths of the sea
are very dark and thus it is hard to meet the needs of the fish, and the
needs of the viewers. Most of the fish are well camouflaged against
predators and this makes them quite attractive to us. Unfortunately I have
no idea what most of them are called or even what family they belong to. |
| I can tell that this is a crab crawling over rocks near some form
of sea anemone. Actually you can only see it because I used flash (which I
did rarely in this set). Most of the time they stay deep in the dark with
only their disembodied eyes peering out. |  |
 | Most places have a
speciality and at Monterey it was the sea otters. These put on a show
several times a day and are partly trained. Treating animals like this is
actually a line of last resort for pups who have lost their parents and the
training is designed to teach them to live independently. The ultimate aim
is to release them to the wild successfully. They are very graceful under
water and live in a pool with other fish (of a type they don't eat). |
| The aquarium also has an aviary for birds which live on the
margins (mostly waders). These have become used to people and you can get
really close to them. Normally you can't get within 100 yards in the wild. |  |
 | It seems to be a
feature of many water birds that they sleep on one leg. The aviary was set
up with a little bit of coast complete with artificial waves and grasses. It
looked a very realistic environment. |
| But most of the aquarium is devoted to fish. There are hundreds
of thousands of different sorts but I think that most are decidedly ugly.
Most just lie in wait for their prey. I wonder if they look as ugly to those
for whom they are the prey. |  |
 | Only a handful of fish
are eaten by us but these are tuna (albeit small ones). To get that size
they must eat many smaller creatures. Perhaps that explains the pugnacious
self satisfied look. |
| But if you met this character in a dark corner, you would
certainly want to be bigger than that mouth, and it can be opened to a
prodigious size. The tanks were very large and had many species in each
tank. It must be a really interesting job to keep the tanks in balance and
all the fish fed so that they don't eat the other exhibits because many fish
are cannibals and eat their own. |  |
 | Most of the displays
were of cold water fish from the oceans. But there were a few containing
what we commonly regard as marine fish (the sort you would keep in an
aquarium in your living room). They are the most colourful and attractive.
But they are very difficult to keep successfully. |
| Besides the fish, there were many tanks of other life forms which
live on the sea floor and reefs. These are some of the most colourful
creatures and also some of the oldest and most primitive forms of life on
the planet. |  |
 | But I think the most
outstanding displays were of the creatures which show up best under
specialised lighting but which are normally almost invisible. This was a
form of sponge. |
| The most unusual specialism of the aquarium was the jellies.
These were shown with special lights and were truly amazing. They were
constantly pulsing and moving up and down the tanks. Some were only a few
millimetres across while others were several inches (the bigger ones they
leave in the sea). Their tails sometimes stretched for over a foot. There
was a whole gallery of different types and it was the first time I had seen
such creatures outside of a book. They were truly beautiful and I could have
watched them for hours. |
| This was a whole group of them displayed above glass pebbles. For
some reason these preferred to be upside down (or maybe only to our eyes).
Since the light levels were very low and flash was not permitted and they
were in constant motion, these displays were very difficult to photograph.
We took hundreds of photos but only a handful made it to the usable status. |  |
|