Between our Baltimore and Washington, DC, venues, more than 17,500 animals representing 900 species call the National Aquarium home. There are constant changes, additions, and more going on behind the scenes that our guests may not notice during their visit. We want to share these fun updates with our community so we’re bringing them to you in our weekly Animal Update posts!
Check our blog every Friday to find out what’s going on… here’s what’s new this week!
Juvenile Nautilus
Several new small chambered nautilus have been added to the nautilus tank in our Sensing gallery. The larger, older nautilus was removed and placed in backup while the new ones undergo a quarantine period.
Chambered nautilus
Did you know the nautilus is considered to be a “living fossil”? This species has undergone little change in more than 400 million years! The nautilus dominated the ancient seas before the rise of fishes, and appeared about 265 million years before the first dinosaurs. In prehistoric times, there were about 10,000 different species of the nautilus, but only a few species survived to the present.
Moon Jellies!
Ten beautiful new moon jellies have been added to our Jellies gallery at National Aquarium, Washington DC.
These jellies were actually born at our Baltimore location! The moon jellies are our most prolific species, meaning they produce the most offspring. We are able to control culturing life-cycle stages through manual temperature manipulation at our jellies lab. Petri dishes covered in polyps (sedentary stage) of this species spend three weeks in a refrigerator.
Juvenile moon jelly
Be sure to check back every Friday to find out what’s happening!
How did you get a picture of the nautilus with all her (?) tentacles spread out??
Most of the time that I see them, their tentacles are clasped in a tight bundles. I saw their tentacles spread out on only occasionally.
Thanks for the question. They spread their tentacles out shortly before shooting out with a short burst of energy. It was really just a matter of timing from our amazing photographer George Grall🙂