Settle in with some spectacular sea slugs as they sway to soothing lo-fi beats.

The mesmerizing video includes footage of nudibranchs on exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium and sightings filmed by divers in the wild. 

🔎 Can you spot the difference?

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Join Meriah for a day in the life of a dive officer at Monterey Bay Aquarium.  From managing a motley crew of volunteers…

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to training staff on the latest CPR techniques…

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Meriah’s number one priority is always the safety of her divers.

Through her dedication to her craft, our dive team can focus on what they do best—keeping our animals healthy and well-fed and exhibits clean and pristine.

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Thanks to her leadership, our guests get a diver’s eye view into these incredible underwater habitats, experiencing the magic of the ocean up close. 🤿

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Check out a day in the life of a dive officer:

We’re otterly excited to announce that, in the coming weeks, we’ll welcome a brand new resident sea otter to the Aquarium’s raft! 

Our newest otter was found stranded as a pup near San Luis Obispo, 100 miles south of Monterey. After being deemed unreleasable by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, she’s spent the past year behind the scenes getting used to her new home at Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

Our team is busy preparing for her to join Ruby, Ivy, and Selka on exhibit. But there’s just one thing missing—she still needs a name! 

Teaching a resident otter to recognize her own name is an important part of her training, so we narrowed it down to three unique choices:

💙Hazel
💙Opal
💙Quinn

Starting this Wednesday, March 26 at 12 p.m. PST, check out our socials for a link to the poll. You’ll have 24 hours to vote and help name our new exhibit otter.

We can’t wait for you to meet her!

📸 1: Emma, a Santa Cruz native, studied Marine Biology at UCSC and began her career in theater costume design. She later followed her passion for animals, spending over a decade as  a zookeeper and aviculturist. Since joining the Aquarium in 2023, she has cared for seabirds and now focuses on our African penguins, building bonds, training, and sharing their stories to inspire ocean conservation.

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📸 2: Dr. Kakani Katija is a bioengineer at MBARI exploring the deep sea with advanced imaging and AI. She leads their Bioinspiration Lab, creating tools to study marine life more efficiently. Her work with underwater robots is helping us understand and protect the ocean.

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📸 3: Alivia, an aviculturist at the Aquarium, takes care of all birds from least sandpipers to Laysan albatrosses. Working closely with species like the endangered African penguin, she inspires both staff and visitors to protect ocean wildlife.

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💙 Our pioneering surrogacy program pairs stranded pups with otter moms who teach them survival skills before they return to the wild.
🔬 Our scientists study otters’ lives, populations, behaviors, and health to support their recovery.

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🏠 We partner with zoos and aquariums to find homes for non-releasable otters and share our expertise to boost the species’ survival.

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🌎 More recently, our team has been monitoring the potential environmental effects of the Moss Landing battery fires on Elkhorn Slough, home to over 100 sea otters. By teaming up with conservation groups and agencies, we’re collecting vital data to protect sea otters, their invertebrate prey, and the entire ecosystem. 

Together, we’re working for a future where sea otters thrive! 🦦💙

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Come and get it, who’s hungry? 🍽️🐟

In the wild, a leopard shark’s diet includes staples like shore crabs and fat innkeeper worms, but these delicacies are hard to find at a fish market. Instead, we feed our leopard sharks healthy customized diets that follow our ocean-friendly Seafood Watch guidelines.

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Here at the Aquarium, they enjoy foods like squid, fish, and prawns, often handed to them by staff divers.  

When you choose sustainable seafood, you’re playing a part in protecting these sharks and the vital ocean ecosystems they rely on!

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Learn more about the nutritious and sustainable diets our aquarists prepare for our animals on exhibit: https://mbayaq.co/4ikoNui

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Our Animal Care team recently completed annual exams on all seven leopard sharks in our Kelp Forest exhibit. From aquarists to veterinarians and volunteers, it takes a small community of shark afishionados to get this important job done!

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Each shark was brought up individually by the dive team, anesthetized, and given a full workup. Vet services drew blood, inspected gills for parasites, checked eyes, and examined the elasmobranchs via ultrasound. Meanwhile, aquarists recorded measurements as the sharks woke up.

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These annual checkups are critical to the ongoing care of these amazing animals—and it wouldn’t be possible without the collaborative work of our dedicated Aquarium community! 💙

📸 Thanks to staffers Mary and Tiffany for the fintastic photos!

Spanning more octaves than a piano, humpback whales sing powerfully into the vast ocean. These songs are beautifully complex, weaving phrases and themes into masterful compositions. 

Immerse yourself in a brand-new YouTube playlist of whale songs that are soothing, serene, and scientifically illuminating. 

Whale song recordings were part of a recent MBARI study on the resilience of baleen whale species like blue and humpback whales as they face changing ocean conditions from climate change.

Join us in celebrating Women’s History Month with Ellen, our senior aquarist who does incredible work with sunflower stars at the Aquarium! 🌟

These once-abundant predators played a key role in keeping Monterey Bay kelp forests healthy, but Sea Star Wasting Disease brought them to the brink of extinction. 

We’re partnering with amazing organizations like the California Academy of Sciences, Aquarium of the Pacific, Birch Aquarium at Scripps, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and the Sunflower Sea Star Lab to bring them back. 

Learn more about our efforts and how we’re growing sunflower stars from tiny babies to giant sea stars!