Texas State Aquarium

This is Part 2 of our story about how cunning aquarists and colleagues cracked the code of comb jelly culture. Click here for Part 1.

Untangling comb jelly culture was a little fishy.

Even with decades of attempts, finding the Golidlocks point for cold-water comb jellies to feel “just right” and reproduce was as elusive as ever. But then, in March 2015, Senior Aquarist Wyatt Patry joined a Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) expedition, led by marine biologist Dr. Steve Haddock, in the Gulf of California. 

And it just so happened that, Dr. William Browne—a professor at the University of Miami studying comb jellies from an evolutionary biology angle—was also onboard.

“Literally within 10 minutes of meeting, we delved into Mnemiopsis culturing,” Wyatt says.

In our exhibits, the aquarists had been feeding adult comb jellies—which are hermaphroditic, both male and female at the same time—baby brine shrimp and tiny crustaceans called copepods.

But Dr. Browne told Wyatt the key to keeping baby comb jellies alive is to feed their parents larval fishes.

Wyatt quickly got in touch with MacKenzie and advised her to switch the comb jelly feed to newborn zebrafish. Suddenly, MacKenzie’s innovative spawning methods worked.

“As soon as we started feeding the adults larval fish, we had super-healthy adults, and the quality and quantity of embryos exploded,” she says.

Where previous efforts had produced on the order of 10 baby comb jellies, the team was now spawning hundreds—even topping 1,000 at one point. 

“We grew so many that we had to find homes for them all,” Wyatt says. “Then we started applying the methods to other species.” 

After spawning three generations of Mnemiopsis in the Jelly Lab, the Aquarium team moved on to other species of comb jellies. The new method worked beautifully for Bolinopsis infundibulum and Pleurobrachia bachei, two popular display species.

Now, the jelly team is working closely with Dr. Browne to co-author a paper sharing this new culturing protocol with other scientists and organisations interested in starting their own comb jelly crop. 

Mackenzie for one is thrilled: “Comb jellies are awesome for so many reasons. I really hope there’s a comb jelly craze!”

A bloom of ctenophores in labs and aquariums worldwide may well shed a large radiating light on the massively understudied gelatinous community of the world ocean. 

Humans are confined to a life battling gravity. We’re surrounded by sturdy species that hold their form out of water, so we’ve naturally gravitated towards an appreciation of “solid” ocean animals, from whales to fish and crabs or squid. 

But the gooey, wiggly and jiggly locomoting loogies of the sea—like salps, pysoromes, siphonophores, larvaceans and pteropods [Editor’s note: those are are real worlds that describe actual animals]—were in the ocean first. And they’re still hard at work to this day.

From planktonic predators to prey for pelagic players, be it the ocean sunfish or the leatherback sea turtle, comb jellies and their mucus mates are integral parts of our planet’s daily show. And now that ctenophores have one less secret, we may soon learn just what it can mean to be an Earthling.

Thanks for reading everyone! If you’d rather veg out with this story, you can watch the video below!

Remember sea otter pup 719, who was rescued by our Sea Otter Program last month? We’re happy to announce that she’s found a permanent home at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago! Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at her journey from rescued pup to new member of the Shedd family.

On January 6, a four-week-old sea otter pup stranded off Carmel Beach during a storm. She was reported rolling in the surf alone and crying. Our Sea Otter Program staff responded, and after rescuing the shivering pup, tried to locate her mother. 

Unfortunately, after an extensive search of the area, we were unable to find mom, and our team brought the little orphan back to the Aquarium for care. Dubbed “719” as the 719th otter we’ve taken in since 1984, she received near round-the-clock care from staff and volunteers to nurse her back to health.

Tender loving care—and more care

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has the only program in the world that focuses on rescuing and caring for stranded southern sea otter pups. We raise pups for release back into the wild, and try to place non-releasable pups in long-term homes at accredited U.S. aquariums and zoos.

Prepping a pup for release to the wild is an intensive, long-term project. After initial guidance through early developmental stages from our Sea Otter Program staff, pups must complete a survival skills class with one of our five resident female sea otters during a months-long surrogacy—a lot of work for everyone involved!

When 719 stranded, all of our available surrogates were already paired with other rescued pups—so our next option was finding a forever home for the pup at an AZA accredited institution. Luckily, our friends and close colleagues at Shedd Aquarium had room available in their sea otter exhibit!

When we heard the good news, we started preparing the pup for her big move to Chicago. Our Sea Otter Program staff got the pup acclimated to face-to-face human care during swimming and grooming sessions, bottle feeding and the transition from formula to solid food.

On a steady diet of tender loving care (and a sea lion’s share of clams), the lively youngster quickly grew stronger. She shed her pup coat and her otter skills developed day by day.

Karl Mayer, whose Sea Otter Program team spent many hours caring for 719, reported: “She’s a very robust and feisty pup. Developmentally she’s slightly ahead of the curve, especially compared to animals that stranded as newborns. This reflects that she came in as a healthy four-week-old-pup. She’s diving consistently down to the bottom of her pool, she’s retrieving food and rocks and shells, and she’s very dexterous with her paws.”

After almost two weeks of caring for 719, on January 21 our staff welcomed Shedd animal trainer Michael Pratt to work with our team in Monterey and meet the now-not-so-little pup. 

After a week of close collaboration, we said farewell to Pup 719 and Michael and Shedd veterinarian Dr. Caryn Poll accompanied her to her new home!

A lucky girl indeed

We’re grateful that Shedd Aquarium was able to provide a caring home for Pup 719. During El Niño years like this one, storms can result in more strandings than usual, making it all the more challenging to manage the care of, or find homes for, sea otter pups that strand along the California coast. In rare cases, we’re able to reunite the pups with their mothers in the wild. When one of our surrogate sea otter moms is available, we rear pups for release. If we can’t raise them for release, and none of our colleagues can offer a permanent home, as a very last option, some pups have to be humanely euthanized.

Southern sea otters play a critical role in shaping and restoring many coastal habitats—and they’re also a threatened species. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Program has been studying the threatened southern sea otter since 1984 with the aim of understanding threats to the population and promoting its recovery.

In otter news…

Another sea otter currently in our care is also gearing up for his next adventure—in the wild! Stay tuned for news about the release of Pup 696, one of several rescued pups currently being raised at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for wild release.

For now, we wish Pup 719 an otter-ly wonderful life at her new home! You can follow the rest of her journey at Shedd here!

The 200 or so species of octopuses are mollusks belonging to the order Cephalopoda, Greek for ‘head-feet’. Those heads contain impressively large brains, with a brain to body ratio similar to that of other intelligent animals, and a complex nervous system with about as many neurons as that of a dog.

From the TED-Ed Lesson Why the octopus brain is so extraordinary - Cláudio L. Guerra

The moray eel is a large species of eel found in warm and temperate waters all around the world. There are around 200 different species that can range in size from just 10cm long to nearly 2 meters in length. 

The moray eel is a relatively secretive animal, spending much of its time hiding in holes and crevices amongst the rocks and coral on the ocean floor. By spending the majority of their time hiding, moray eels are able to remain out of sight from predators and are also able to ambush any unsuspecting prey that passes.

Due to the small size of the gills, morays have to continuously open and close their mouths in a gaping fashion to maintain a flow of water and facilitate respiration.