Everything until now has been mere foreplay, the amouse bouche before dinner, the open fifths from the string before the conductor gives the downbeat...Bottom Fish.
Most of these fish I've never seen before, nor would I have seen, as they aren't your typical aquarium fare. This means that I don't know, nor do I remember, most of the fishes names. The one above is some type of goby or blenny, I think, and it was in the tank with the Dr. Seuss Sea Anemones.
A lot of the fish weren't very colorful---not the typical blues and yellows and reds that one would expect if going to a tropical reef exhibit.
The Aquarium also had a dedicated flounder exhibit, with several different species in several rather large tanks. These two guys, above and below, are the same species. The flounder has a remarkable ability to match the bottom, regardless of the color---of course, anyone who's been floundering can tell you that. I had never seen such drastic variations in color back to back, however.
There was a whole tank dedicated to garbage---specifically, the ability of nature to utilize whatever shelter is available. I'm not sure what the point to this was, other than to encourage people to throw empty bottles into the ocean:
These gobies got along quite nicely in their improvised homes. It is even interesting that the darker goby chose the darker bottle (below) and the lighter goby (I didn't get a good picture of him) chose the lighter colored bottle. I don't think that this is a coincidence.
This is a shovelnose guitarfish, which I have never seen in person before. They live along the west coast, but I think there are species which live in the Gulf of Mexico.
I'm not altogether sure what kind of ray this is, but it looks like a cownose ray, which we catch from time to time off of the beach in Galveston.
This was another impressive exhibit. What they've done is actually opened the egg case of a skate (a type of ray) without disturbing the embryo, and then closed it against a piece of glass. The result is an actual look inside the egg case:
This is a wolf eel, found in cold water reefs. You can see a stupid person's camera display at the bottom:
This is a lingcod, wihch is a bit difficult to see:
This is a bit better picture.
And this is what it looks like after it returns from the dead:
There were tons of exhibits with little fish living in little crevaces, which occasionally popped out to see what was going on:
This is some species of blenny, again.
Kelp Fish.
There were several tanks dedicated to the kelp forests which the Pacific Coast is famous for. The next few pictures come from the third largest display in the whole aquarium. There are several species of fish in this picture, but the one I liked was the white sturgeon, in the middle. These guys are famous for their eggs, which rich people call caviar.
This is a leopard shark, one of few sharks which can live without moving constantly. For some reason, most sharks lack a mechanism to efficiently force water over their gills, which means they have to keep moving to keep water flowing. The leopard sharks (aparently) have the ability to just lay around. In the Gulf, we have nurse sharks with the same ability.
The second largest display in the aquarium was dedicated to the kelp forests, as well. I can't begin to name all the species in the tank, but this is a California Sheepshead, much less conservatively colored than the sheepsheads which live in the Gulf.
I'm not sure what this bruiser is. It looks like some sort of grouper or seabass.
These are some perches and rockfishes. I have much better pictures of rockfish below
This is also a rockfish, although unrelated to the ones above. Actually, I think this is also called a cabazon, but I am probably mistaken.
Tropical Fish.
Of course, no aquarium would be complete without the canonical reef exhibits. These fish were quite impressive, though, even if I have seen them before.
This is one of my favorites, called a butterfly fish.
This is the moray eel picture I promised. His teeth are very impressive. They are stalkers---the way they hunt is to hide in a hole and dart out when something tasty swims by. The long teeth ensure that the tasty thing can't wiggle away.
This is another one of my favorite fish, called a yellow tang. I just like yellow, I guess.
Rock Fish.
These guys are apparently quite tasty, and were fished to near extinction. They are sometimes called snapper, but I think they are not related to the deep water fish that we know and love (to eat) in Texas. This is a canary rockfish.
I can't help but think how he'd taste sauteed in butter, with some crab meat piled on top...
Nearest I can tell, this is an olive rockfish. I wonder if you can taste the difference?
This is called a bocaccio, I think.
This is a china rockfish. I tried to get more pictures, but they all turned out blurry.
Blue Water.Anchovies!
I think this was my favorite exhibit of them all, the pelagic species. I didn't get very many good pictures, mostly because the light was low, and I didn't have a camera which would allow adequate shutter speeds for the low light conditions. I did get a FEW pictures, though. This is an ocean sunfish, flanked by a bluefin tuna to the left.
I was able to get some video, though. In this video, you'll see some (500+ pounds) bluefin tuna (sometimes called "fatty" tuna or toro), a 300+ pound yellowfin tuna (commonly called ahi) , some Pacific Barracuda, a few mahi mahi (sometimes called dorado or dolphin), and maybe a few other fish.Here's a quick track list:
0:00 Pacific Barracuda.
0:12 Big Bluefin Tuna.
0:17 Huge mahi mahi
0:25 More Bluefin
0:31 Big Yellowfin Tuna
0:47 Bluefin (top) albacore? bottom
1:02 More Bluefin
1:04 Big mahi mahi again
1:18 Two big bluefin
1:28 Great picture of mahi mahi
1:32 School of albacore
Finally, this is a short (2 second) video of the full tank, with emphasis on the great hammerhead shark, which I've never really seen in the wild before.
There's still a few more posts to make on Monterey Bay Aquarium---it was THAT awesome.
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