Into the Deep featured species

Featured species listed by gallery

This is only a select list of animals featured in the exhibition. Animals on exhibit will periodically change over the course of its run.

Story bibliography

Webpage

• Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean exhibit webpage

Videos

• Why Do Deep-Sea Animals Look So Weird?
• Is The Deep Sea Dark? How Animals Use Bioluminescence In The Ocean
• The Top 10 Deep-Sea Animals (according to Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute scientists)
• Some Like It Hot: Explore The Wild World of Hydrothermal Vents with a Deep-Sea Biologist!
• What creatures live in the "Midnight Zone" of the deep sea?
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Explores Magical Gardens Of Deep Sea Life Off The Big Sur Coast

MBARI stories

• Autonomous robotic rover helps scientists with long-term monitoring of deep-sea carbon cycle and climate change
• Genetic probes give new clues about the stunning diversity of comb jellies
• Vertical migration timing illuminates importance of predator pressure in the ocean's twilight zone
• Seeing Sur Ridge: New animation transforms deep-sea mapping data to reveal the majesty of an underwater oasis
• New laser system provides 3D reconstructions of living deep-sea animals and their mucous filters
• New study finds microplastic throughout Monterey Bay
• Unique field survey yields first big-picture view of deep-sea food webs
• New study shows that three quarters of deep-sea animals make their own light

Monterey Bay Aquarium stories in the media

• The Deep Sea May Soon Be Up for Grabs
  New York Times, June 8, 2018
• Bringing the Ocean’s Midnight Zone Into the Light
  New York Times, September 22, 2020
• A Fish With a Transparent Head Was Seen Near Monterey
  NBC Los Angeles, December 14, 2021
• How an Aquarium Collects Curious Creatures From the Deep
  Wired, December 23, 2021
• Monterey Bay Aquarium announces date for long-anticipated deep sea exhibition
  Monterey County Weekly, January 11, 2022
• Never-before-seen Deep Sea Creatures Are Coming to This California Aquarium's New Exhibit
  Travel + Leisure, January 20, 2022
• New Monterey Bay Aquarium exhibit to feature deep sea creatures that look out of this world
  SFGate, February 11, 2022
• Monterey Bay Aquarium to unveil new ‘Into the Deep’ exhibition
  Monterey Herald, February 22, 2022

MBARI stories in the media

• Why Was This Ancient Mammoth Tusk Discovered at the Bottom of the Ocean?
  The New York Times
• This Intrepid Robot Is the WALL-E of the Deep Sea
  WIRED
• Taking the Pulse of the Ocean's Comb Jellies
  The New York Times
• Can Scientists Map the Entire Seafloor by 2030?
  Smithsonian Magazine
• New $50 million research ship to be named for Silicon Valley pioneer
  The Mercury News

Notable stories about Into the Deep

1. People are connected to the deep sea, and for our survival, we need it to be healthy. While most people think of the deep sea as a distant place that is unconnected to their lives, the deep sea is incredibly important to life as we know it on the planet. The largest living space on Earth, the deep sea is integral in cycling nutrients, heat, and oxygen all over our planet, so the health of the deep sea is tied to all life on Earth—even us.
    
2. Bringing the Deep Sea to Life has required unprecedented research, development, and engineering from our staff. Our team has created the most ambitious and technologically advanced exhibition in our history. This will be the first time any aquarium has put some of these species on exhibit, and to do that, we have to carefully replicate their favorite ocean conditions. This has resulted in the most sophisticated water treatment system ever designed at the Aquarium, which can finely adjust temperature, oxygen levels, and pH.
    
3. We need to protect and conserve the deep sea. Even though the deep sea is unlike more familiar surface ocean habitats, human activity still puts it at risk: fishing pressure, habitat destruction, plastic pollution, mining, and climate change. And because conditions in the deep have remained stable for millennia, it may not be as resilient to human-driven disturbances.
    
4. The deep sea has mysterious secrets yet to discover. It is a cliché, but there are better maps of the surface of the planet Mars than there are of our own planet’s seabed. Estimates vary, but experts think we’ve only explored about five percent of our oceans. With the deep sea comprising the largest living space on Earth, there is so much more out there to find.
    
5. Monterey Bay Aquarium and our partner MBARI are uniquely equipped to tell the story of life in the deep because the deep sea is literally in our backyard. Since its founding in the 1980s, MBARI has continuously explored the mile-deep submarine canyon, which begins at its headquarters in Moss Landing and stretches westward under the waves of Monterey Bay. A global leader in deep-ocean research MBARI researchers are revealing the deep sea right here in Monterey Bay. They have discovered and described several of the species that will be on exhibit and study how climate change and plastic pollution are affecting this fragile ocean habitat.