Monterey Bay Aquarium Major deep sea animal exhibit coming to MBA

Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Oh that's cool, I know for the siphonophores they have the lights ramp up slowly in the morning and down slowly during closing so they don't stress them out. That's super neat, hopefully they'll still be on display when I go back down in April. I know that's only a month away but then again Cephs age pretty fast so fingers crossed
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Yeah, they were really quite adorable and I feel fortunate I was able to see them relatively soon after they rotated on. I hope they are still on when you are able to visit, but even if they rotate out, there will likely be something else in there that is also interesting.
 
ChunkyMunky pengopus said:
Yeah, they were really quite adorable and I feel fortunate I was able to see them relatively soon after they rotated on. I hope they are still on when you are able to visit, but even if they rotate out, there will likely be something else in there that is also interesting.
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Yeah, they're the first benthic rotation so far. I also heard from some others that the number of salmon snailfish on display seems to be shrinking (last I heard there were 2 or 3 a few weeks ago?) so those might be rotated out soon as well. From the content I've seen BTS at MBA and from aquariums in Japan, it looks like a lot of times, adults are housed solo or in small groups as opposed to the 20+ juveniles that were on display at the opening. So it could be an aggression thing or maybe they're starting a breeding program BTS. I'm interested to see what the next Benthic rotation could be
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Yeah, they're the first benthic rotation so far. I also heard from some others that the number of salmon snailfish on display seems to be shrinking (last I heard there were 2 or 3 a few weeks ago?) so those might be rotated out soon as well. From the content I've seen BTS at MBA and from aquariums in Japan, it looks like a lot of times, adults are housed solo or in small groups as opposed to the 20+ juveniles that were on display at the opening. So it could be an aggression thing or maybe they're starting a breeding program BTS. I'm interested to see what the next Benthic rotation could be
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Yes, there were only two in the tank at the beginning of February. I wonder if the hagfish would be rotated back on at some point.
 
Also I don't remember if I mentioned it here before but someone on the socials team mentioned that they're hoping to have Sea Angels back on display in the Spring. I don't have the exact screenshot but the interaction was something like;
Comment: When will the Sea Angels be back?
MBA: We hope to have them back in the Spring! They make a seasonal appearance in Monterey Bay so we hope to have them again next year! (This was from November / December of last year)

Maybe they'll return in Late March / April? Would line up with the time they were on display last year for the opening. Also hopefully this means the Balloon Worms will be back on display with them as well
 
The newest addition of "SHORELINES" (MBA's Member Magazine) arrived today. While there isn't much information regarding new species, the species of Phronima that can be seen on display sometimes, Phronima Sedentaria, are another World First for MBA and Into the Deep it mentions.
Also the cover is of a Phyllosoma which I think is pretty cool, makes a nice color scheme
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I'm here for 3 days (including today) and there's been quite a few new changes:
• The Bolinopsis and Abyssicola have swapped tanks. The Bolinopsis are now in the Circular Tank, and the Abyssicola are now in the Tall tube shaped tank.
•Brisingid Stars are no longer on display, and Feather Stars have taken their place. This means Feather Stars are now present in 3 tanks.
•The Long Spur Jellies actually don't have a graphic yet. Theirs just says "Recent Arrival" and talks about the Aquariums collaboration with MBARI. Perhaps they'll get an official graphic down the line.
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Massive thank you to Matt Wandell for showing me around the back today. There's so many staircases and different halls, it's like a maze. I was able to talk to Tommy for a bit too and here's some info I learned:
•The Abyssicola (Abyssal Comb Jellies) are actually from Japan. Even though they're found in the Bay, the ones on display were shipped from Japan.
•The Leuckartiara are from Hawaii.
•There was a species of Hawaiian Siphonophore on display recently (I forgot the name but I'll post here if I remember). Making it the 2nd ever species to be on display in the world. But unfortunately I haven't seen any posts about it and no signage. I'll try and ask for the name.
•They've worked with the Christmas Tree Siphonophores and another species (I forgot the name) but those aren't ready for display yet.
•I forgot the exact wording (I want to say Saturday since that's when the people who change the signs out are coming in he said), a new species will replace the Nanomia Siphonophores;
•The Beaded Comb Jelly (Euplokamis sp.) will go on Display. The cooler thing is that they're cultured by the Jelly Team as well. They're on Gen 2 but the Gen 1s are more likely to be on display since they're bigger.
This makes MBA the first to display them, and also I believe the first to Culture them.
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Massive thank you to Matt Wandell for showing me around the back today. There's so many staircases and different halls, it's like a maze. I was able to talk to Tommy for a bit too and here's some info I learned:
•The Abyssicola (Abyssal Comb Jellies) are actually from Japan. Even though they're found in the Bay, the ones on display were shipped from Japan.
•The Leuckartiara are from Hawaii.
•There was a species of Hawaiian Siphonophore on display recently (I forgot the name but I'll post here if I remember). Making it the 2nd ever species to be on display in the world. But unfortunately I haven't seen any posts about it and no signage. I'll try and ask for the name.
•They've worked with the Christmas Tree Siphonophores and another species (I forgot the name) but those aren't ready for display yet.
•I forgot the exact wording (I want to say Saturday since that's when the people who change the signs out are coming in he said), a new species will replace the Nanomia Siphonophores;
•The Beaded Comb Jelly (Euplokamis sp.) will go on Display. The cooler thing is that they're cultured by the Jelly Team as well. They're on Gen 2 but the Gen 1s are more likely to be on display since they're bigger.
This makes MBA the first to display them, and also I believe the first to Culture them.
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The species of Siphonophore that was on display was Rhizophyza from Hawaii, making that the 2nd species.
And according to the MBA Instagram, that Jelly is not Leuckartiara longicalcar, it's actually Merga costata, another world first for MBA.
 
According to the site, and thanks to Random Rhincodontid in the MBA discord for confirming as of yesterday, Sea Angels (Clione sp.) and Tower Jellies (Neoturris sp.) are back on Display. This also means the Mauve Stingers, Phyllosoma, and Merga costata are off display. (Beth Redmond Jones, higher up at MBA, just posted a video of the Sea Angels Beth Redmond-Jones on Instagram: "Catching up with colleagues at work today… #seaangel #intothedeep #deepsea #midwater @montereybayaquarium" )

The Sea Angels only show up in Spring in Monterey Bay it sounds like so this is the only time of the year to see them. Hopefully this also means we'll see the Balloon Worms (Poebius sp.) on display with them soon too
 
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(Possible) New Giant Pink Isopods on display (Bathynomus doederleinii)

In the discord announcement for a playtest of a science video game in collaboration with MBARI and other researchers, Emily from the social media team revealed this new Pink fellow with the existing Giant Isopods (B. giganteus). It's unknown whether these are on display right now or behind the scenes, though the environment in the picture makes it look like they're on display.
Smaller and more Pink that the B. giganteus, this now means 2 Giant Isopod species are on display. Whether you'll be able to touch them, that's to be determined.
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Bathynomus doederleinii, the salmon snailfish and the predaory tunicates are not on display while a corallimorphid is back on display.
 
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Thanks to Izzy in the discord, it sounds like the rotated species for the Salmon Snaiflsh is a Deep-Sea Coral species called "Red Rope Coral". No Latin name, photos, posts, or species profile I could find. I wonder if any other hitchhiker species or misc. species are sharing the tank with them. Hopefully we get a latin name at least soon.

Also thank you to George Matsumoto for confirming the species of Hawaiian Siphonophore was specifically "Rhizophysa eysenhardtii". A really cool looking species, lucky for those that got to see them.
 
From the Aquarium's Instagram stories today, a few rotations were made:

Pacific Hagfish are back on display, and from the shape of the tank, it looks like the North Pacific Bigeye Octopus Juveniles are off display. Perhaps they're at the size where they need to start being separated.

The Salmon Snailfish tank has been transformed into "Monterey Canyon Window" tank, featuring various species of Coral and Inverts from the Monterey Submarine Canyon. (Such as the "Red Rope Coral" in the previous reply).
I might be wrong on this but what I believe; The difference between this tank and the Coral Community Tank in the Seamount section is that the species in that tank are collected from the Davidson Seamount, while the species in the new tank are collected from a different region of the Monterey Submarine Canyon. It's unclear what other species are in the tank, and if they're labled or not, but it's still pretty cool.
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Shoutout to @splendens for finding this article from the Atlas Obscura; it contains a lot of behind the scenes information such as Siphonophore culture, collecting the animals, and much more. It was a fun read but there's also some really exciting information that's contained in here (if true).

Into the Deep now a permanent exhibit | This was the biggest piece of info from the article: it states that Into the Deep will actually be a permanent exhibit. Another thing to back it up is that on the exhibits page on the MBA site, Into the Deep is just labeled as "Exhibit" rather than "Special Exhibition". I believe it was labeled the latter before but I can't remember too well.
If true, that's amazing. This exhibit is too good to only be a temporary exhibit, even if it was going to be for 8 years. Plus all the renovations for the bottom viewing of the Open Sea Tank (aka the entrance to Into the Deep) fits perfectly.

Other bits of info:
-A species of Sea Gooseberry (Hormiphora sp.) was on display for a short while. It's unknown whether it's the same species that's on display in the Drifter's Gallery (Hormiphora californensis).
-The Tower Jellies (at least the ones that were displayed recently) are confirmed to be Neoturris breviconis (previously signed just as Neoturris sp.)

And something cool from an instagram post is that an 'Amber Bloody Belly Comb Jelly' (Lampocteis sp.) is on display with the "regular" Bloody Bellies. Tommy Knowles has confirmed that the Amber Bloody Belly is infact a different species (key differences are different color of course, found at deeper depths than the regular bloody bellies, the comb rows are different too, along with other differences), so that's cool to see. He did mention that they're a bit trickier to house than the regular Bloody Bellies but they do pop up on display from time to time.
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Into the Deep now a permanent exhibit | This was the biggest piece of info from the article: it states that Into the Deep will actually be a permanent exhibit. Another thing to back it up is that on the exhibits page on the MBA site, Into the Deep is just labeled as "Exhibit" rather than "Special Exhibition". I believe it was labeled the latter before but I can't remember too well.
If true, that's amazing. This exhibit is too good to only be a temporary exhibit, even if it was going to be for 8 years. Plus all the renovations for the bottom viewing of the Open Sea Tank (aka the entrance to Into the Deep) fits perfectly.
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I can't say I'd be too surprised if this is indeed true - from a research and exhibit perspective there's nothing like it in NA. It's strong enough to stand alone and be a draw, and stuff rotates through regularly enough it's always going to have some unique factors. They'd lose one of the temporary exhibit spaces, but given the rotating exhibits are there for years anyways, I don't see it as being a real loss. Particularly as it's such an incredible exhibit in its own right.
 
According to the website, it seems like Tower Jellies have rotated out, and the Hourglass Jellies (
Catablema vesicarium) are on display for the first time. I'm not sure if this is the same species that was in one of the plankton tanks in the Drifter's Gallery (you might be able to find the photo in the media area), but it looks pretty similar.

This makes the current Midwater lineup (to my knowledge):

The Bloody Belly Combs, Sea Angels, Common Siphonophores, Lobed Combs (Bolinopsis), Abyssal Combs, Hourglass Jellies, Purple Lipped Jellies, and the "Red X" undescribed combs.
 
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