Oceans

Hula-la! 😍

This crystalline creature is a hula skirt siphonophore (Physophora hydrostatica), and is actually made up of many individual animals called zooids, each with a different part to play. The finger-like zooids, colored with beautiful tinges of orange and violet, attach at the base of the swimming bell-shaped zooids, and house relatively potent stinging cells that can impart a strong sting to a potential predator or unsuspecting prey 😈🍴

“What’s that on the beach?!" 

Monterey Bay beachcombers and divers were treated to a huge bloom of salps this weekend! Salps are gelatinous filter-feeders that drift with and feed in the plankton. Wind and waves sometimes blow these open-ocean emissaries onshore by the thousands, a feast for fishes, invertebrates—and for the eyes of curious naturalists!

There were several species of salps in this weekend’s bloom, including these in the genus Salpa. Salps do not sting—in fact, they’re more closely related to fishes and people than they are to other "jellies”! The brown/orange orb is the salp’s gut. Pumping muscle bands push water from one end of the animal to the other through an internal plankton-pasta strainer.

Salps have an incredibly successful reproductive strategy, allowing them to explode in numbers when conditions are right. Ready? Here we go: Salps can be found as solos, or as a chain of dozens of individuals attached together. Same species, two different body morphs. The solos produce the chain asexually, and the individuals in the chain are all clones. 

OK, still with us? The next part is a doozy: A young chain is female, and each female clone produces another solo salp from an egg that is fertilized by older male chains. The older male chains are female chains that changed sex as they aged—this is called sequential hermaphroditism. This whole process allows salps to produce new generations at an incredible rate, to take advantage of fleeting oceanic conditions. Phew, we did it!

Salps are thought to have an outsized effect on the flow of nutrients in the ocean’s food web. Because their fecal pellets sink, salp poop delivers vital nutrition from the ocean surface to the deep seafloor, and helps take carbon from the atmosphere to the deep, which helps regulate the planet’s climate. Spent salps from these huge blooms become food for countless organisms throughout the water column. Certain deep sea communities may even depend on these ephemeral feasts to survive in the desert of the abyssal plain, according to research by our colleagues at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).

This weekend’s salp bloom is a jiggly reminder of the vast community of gelatinous drifters—the gelata—that drift in the open ocean, connecting the surface to the deep and adjusting the Earth’s energy flow, unseen by most until a chance encounter on the shore.

We’re so excited to share that this beautiful portrait of our Executive Director, Julie Packard, is now on display in the National Portrait Gallery! ❤️🌊

Painted by artist Hope Gangloff, this vividly colored piece is only the second figure of a woman working in the field of marine science and conservation to be featured in the National Portrait Gallery (the first was Rachel Carson).

The Aquarium’s founding executive director, Julie Packard has redefined aquariums as a force for conservation. Under her direction, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has expanded the public’s world view by bringing new marine life to light—from mysterious jellies to a living kelp forest, alien deep-sea animals to the graceful inhabitants of the open sea. With every new exhibition, Julie’s direction aimed to bring people closer to the ocean, encouraging them to protect what they love.

“We are delighted to recognize Julie Packard as one of the leading women in science and for her extraordinary contributions to the field of ocean conservation,” said the National Portrait Gallery’s chief curator, Brandon Brame Fortune. “This painting celebrates the National Portrait Gallery’s 17th commissioned portrait to enter the museum’s collection and is Hope Gangloff’s first major museum commission. It was a pleasure to bring these two women figures together to create a piece of history.”

Hope’s affinity for large-scale and bright color palettes helped her capture a number of the Kelp Forest’s iconic species in the portrait, including the garibaldi, California sheephead, leopard shark and giant sea bass, during her visits to the Aquarium.  Her work showcases the rich community of species that call the kelp forest—one of the ocean’s most productive ecosystems—home. Kelp forests are among the many ecosystems protected by California’s world-leading network of Marine Protected Areas, for which Julie was an instrumental advocate.

“I’m honored to join Rachel Carson representing women in the marine sciences and conservation in the National Portrait Gallery. So many other gifted women deserve a place, too, including Jane Lubchenco and Sylvia Earle.” 

- Julie Packard

In addition to the National Portrait Gallery commission, Hope created a portrait of Julie’s favorite fish, the ocean sunfish Mola mola, for Julie.

The portrait will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. through November 2020 as part of the five-year Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, “Because of Her Story.”

Portrait Credit: Julie Packard by Hope Gangloff, acrylic on canvas, 2019. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. ©Hope Gangloff. Photo by Mark Gulezian / Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery