The Monterey Bay Aquarium has learned how to raise the deepest sea life to the surface and keep it alive for display. Tommy Knowles, a senior aquarist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, used a red light to illuminate a pair of larvaceans collected from the deep sea earlier that day.Credit...Tyler Schiffman Have you ever seen a giant larvacean, the tiny sea squirt that lives inside a giant mucus house? How about a wildly iridescent bloodybelly comb jelly? If not, youâ??re far from alone. In the deepest, darkest parts of the world's oceans, mysterious and remarkable animals abound. But because of the immense cost and logistical challenges involved in exploring those depths, only a handful of scientists, engineers and well-financed explorers such as James Cameron have been able to see these creatures in the flesh. However, life in the deep sea may soon be accessible to all. Public aquariums around the world are spending millions of dollars on research and development aimed at putting deep-sea animals on display. Leading the effort is California's Monterey Bay Aquarium, which plans to spend $15 million over the next two years to create the world's first large-scale exhibition of deep-sea life, a 10,400-square-foot display named â??Into the Deep: Exploring our Undiscovered Ocean.â? Many of the animals that the aquarium hopes to put on display are found far below the reach of sunlight, in a region called the midnight zone, which extends from a depth of about 3,300 to 13,000 feet. Much remains to be learned about life at these depths, and no other aquarium has attempted such an exhibit. By bringing these wonders to light, the aquarium hopes to raise public awareness of their existence and their plight, as fishing, warming temperatures and seabed mining threaten to cause permanent damage to ecosystems that, although unseen, underlie those that humans rely on directly. In recent years, aquariums in Japan and... |