Big tanks at Monterey Bay Aquarium ready after major renovation
MONTEREY - Cleaning and fixing up the fish tank is never much fun. Ask any tropical fish hobbyist with a pair of angel fish, some gravel and a few plastic plants.But what if the tank is 35 feet deep and has a window the size of a drive-in movie screen?
In what may be the mother of all fish tank spring cleaning projects, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is putting the final touches on the overhaul of its Outer Bay tank - a 1 million gallon structure that holds more water than the other 90 tanks in the aquarium combined and ranks among the largest tanks in the United States.
It's all part of a $19 million transformation that re-opened the big tank to the public on Saturday.
"It's been like remodeling a 30,000 square-foot home while 18 people are living in it," said David Cripe, special exhibits coordinator at the aquarium.
"We stressed over how we were going to move things and catch things. But we got it done two weeks ahead of schedule."
The exhibit, rechristened "the Open Sea," features new species in the big tank and other nearby displays, including a sand bar shark from Oahu, tufted puffins and other seabirds, a high-tech interactive video wall display on plankton, deep sea jellies and numerous art installations.
Aquarium scientists also plan to bring in a new juvenile great white shark in September, the sixth white shark the aquarium will have put on display since 2004.
No aquarium in the world has a great white shark on display.
Last week, dozens of volunteer docents getting their first look stepped around painters, welders and other construction workers who were putting the final touches on the exhibit.
As they oohed and aahed at the refurbished marquee tank, with shimmering schools of sardines darting past languidly floating mahi mahi and hypnotic sea turtles, they may not have realized the long road of scientific trial and error, setbacks and elbow grease to get the project this far.
The aquarium closed the big tank to the public last August. It seemed that the blue fin and yellow fin tuna - some of which had grown to more than 300 pounds from their original sizes as small as 25 pounds - were creating such turbulence in the water as they swam fast that glass tiles on the inside of the tank were falling off.
"The green sea turtles were eating the tiles," said aquarium spokesman Ken Peterson. "They didn't get hurt. They'd pass them. But we didn't want to risk it."
The tank needed an upgrade anyway, aquarium managers thought.
New Species In The Last Decade - News
It's the same sight that many of the species see as they are migrating up to 10000 miles each year across the Pacific Ocean, a pattern that the new exhibit highlights, based on research with satellite tags done over the past decade by Stanford
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), from 1999 to 2010 some 615 new species have been discovered on the subtropical island. That list of new species is comprised of 42 invertebrates, 61 reptiles, 69 amphibians, 17 fish, 385 plants,
Officials at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium have laid out their goals for the next 10 years in a strategic plan that analyzes new animals they could bring in, facilities they need to overhaul and priorities they need to redefine.
More than 1000 new species have been discovered in New Guinea in a 10-year span, according to a new report from conservation organization WWF. Among the 1060 species uncovered between 1998 and 2008 are 12 mammals, including a giant, wooly rat that
It's the same sight that many of the species see as they are migrating up to 10000 miles each year across the Pacific Ocean, a pattern that the new exhibit highlights, based on research with satellite tags done in the past decade by Stanford University
Over 600 New Species Found in Madagascar During Past Decade
By Michael Ricciardi
As far as biodiversity ‘hot spots’ go, it’s hard to beat Madagascar, a medium sized island off the southeast coast of Africa. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) , from 1999 to 2010 some 615 new species have been discovered on the subtropical island. That list of new species is comprised of 42 invertebrates, 61 reptiles, 69 amphibians, 17 fish, 385 plants, and 41 mammals (note: discoveries of just one new species of mammal are rare) and includes the world’s tiniest known primate, and a spider which builds a web over three feet in diameter,
What accounts for the tremendous species richness of the island? Biologists believe that the island nation’s quite ancient, geologic isolation from the mainland of Africa (quite ancient) and the more recent separation from the Indian section of the crustal plate (about 80 mya) set the stage for its uniquely evolved biodiversity. Add to that a mountain range that runs down the center of the island — creating wet and dry regions and providing a geological barrier to inter-breeding — and you have the perfect setting for evolution to unfold in marvelously unpredictable ways.
Every year, the biological “treasure trove” that is Madagascar becomes better known to the scientific world. Unfortunately, the island — a former French colony — is now experiencing the growing environmental problems that come with modern industrialization, as in so many other wild places around the world.
Plantations are being cultivated on a large scale (the nation accounts for half the world’s exports of vanilla) and deforestation, oil/gas extraction and mineral mining operations are spreading. Since 2009, the island nation’ s government has been threatened by political instability following the ouster of its controversial president Ravalomanana and the installing of Rajoelina after a series of deadly protests. Foreign corporate interests are often competing with foreign scientific ones, while illegal trade in exotic species is a growing problem.
In the midst of this, the people of Madagascar — comprised of 19 different ethnic groups — struggle to educate themselves and deal with the pressures of a modernizing world and the imperative of preserving the rich biodiversity of their native land.
Re: Chrysiptera cymatilis among a thousand new species from New Guinea in the last decade: I do wish that some M...
Re: Chrysiptera cymatilis among a thousand new species from New Guinea in the last decade: What is this, Rainbow...
Re: Chrysiptera cymatilis among a thousand new species from New Guinea in the last decade: I've bred irian reds ... New Species In The Last Decade - Bookshelf
Advances in parasitology
The species of sandflies listed as vectors of leishmaniases by Bray (1974) ... present review attempts to summarize achievements in the last decade or so. ...Transactions of the American Microscopical Society
... some of these species in unrecorded regions and of the existence of new species ... which have been made within the past decade in these United States. ...New Scientist
Bussak is screening individuals of different tree species to isolate more ... The US is top with 60 per cent of prizes for science in the past decade. ...New Scientist
The members of the genus have in general been so little studied that primatologists have discovered two entirely new species within the past decade. ...Science
Last year he discovered in southern Bosnia five new species of eyeless cave ... The Iron-Mining Industry of New York for the Past Decade," from which it ...Detect Articles Directory
WWF - Amazing Discoveries in the Amazon: New Species Found ...
A blind and tiny, bright red new species of catfish that lives mainly in subterranean waters. ... The new species outlined in "Amazon Alive!: A Decade of Discoveries ...
1,200 New Species in Amazon Found in Last Decade | Gather
Over 1,200 new species of plants and vertebrates have been found in the Amazon over the last 10 years. Thats a new species every three days, according to...
Yale Environment 360: More than 1,200 New Species Discovered ...
Discovered in Amazon Over Last Decade. Researchers discovered more than 1,200 new species of plants and animals in the Amazon during the last decade, ...
More than 1,200 New Species Discovered in Amazon Over Last Decade
... 200 new species of plants and animals in the Amazon during the last decade, a rate of about one new species every three days, according to a new report. ...
144 new species in last decade in Northeast - Indian Express
144 new species in last decade in Northeast - As many as 353 new species of flora and fauna have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas in the past ...