A dazzling display of undersea life is currently on display at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Almost celestial, the Jelly Dreamscapes exhibit is offers a vast array of sea jellies. From more common species to rarer types, these fascinating creatures are hypnotic, delicate, and diverse.
The exhibition is thoughtfully laid out, with an entrance display that features informative video screens and a vast “lake” with shifting, mesmerizing pastel lights playing off the incandescent jellies floating there.
From there, visitors are invited to wander among the curved aquariums, watching these beautiful and mysterious creatures float and swim through their respective spaces. While sea jellies have no heart, brains, or gills, they are so wondrously alive that the viewer remains riveted by these amazing beings.
Each consists of three main parts, the bell — the umbrella or bulbous shaped top which propels their movement, tentacles that are designed to sting and immobilize prey (and of course a luckless human or two), and arms or flaps that move their prey to their stomach or broods.
Sea jellies primarily consume zooplankton, small crustaceans, fish, or other jellies; they range in size from as small the eraser on a pencil to a vast presence not present in the aquarium said to be larger than a blue whale. They’re close related to to sea anemones and coral, a fascinating fact learned at the exhibition. Even more awe inspiring, jellies have existed even before dinosaurs roamed the planet.
Watching the various jellies is rather like seeing a rainbow: they shift within their watery world, emanating a kind of mute beauty and grace that makes visitors spend copious amounts of time just watching them be alive. Some appeared completely translucent, others more colorful. Some were marbled, some were milky, some were spotted, some lacy, some have long, dangling tentacles, others have small, eyelash-like tentacles that blink and sway. Warty comb jellies are not true sea jellies in that they do not sting, but their tiny cilia form light prisms that dance with color.
This is a completely wonderful, gaspingly beautiful exhibition that should not be missed.
Equally riveting is the aquarium’s Frogs: Facing a Challenging World. Brilliantly colorful and often quite minute, the frogs on exhibit reveal wildly different ecological adaptations from poisonous responses to astounding camoflage. Here you’ll find the bright blue poison dart frog, the panamanian golden frog, and the Magnificent Tree Frog. A frog nursery exhibition is particularly informative.
In the same area, a mysterious-looking axolotl – a salamander that remains with gills, tail, and body fin intact its entire life, is another fascinating creature to observe.
Elsewhere in the aquarium, you’ll find purple sea urchins, bright hyellow butterfly fish, a Cortez Rainbow Wrasse from the Gulf of California, a forest of green, red, and blue colored lorikeets, seals and sea lions, spiny lobsters, gigantic whiprays, zebra sharks, and a sea turtle, among other thoughtfully laid-out, experiential exhibits.
The aquarium is always an enchanting way to spend a day; don’t miss the Jelly Dreamscapes now through April 30, 2027 or the amazing, brilliantly colorful frogs.
- Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis
Lately I’ve been trying and experimenting with trying to create this same dream like jelly fish look in my own art work .