Underwater adventure awaits in Galveston
Moody Gardens’ aquarium restoration nears completion
Greg Whittaker is deep into jellyfish right now. He was up until 4 a.m. to get the new tanks filled with water in the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens in Galveston.
The entire pyramid has been closed to the public since early January to finish a $37 million renovation before its reopening Memorial Day weekend.
A huge part of that work is adding 50,000 gallons of large-format exhibits that the facility didn’t have before, said Whittaker, animal husbandry manager at Moody Gardens.
The aquarium already had moonfish jellies, but Whittaker said he can’t wait for visitors to see the new range of species when he and his staff are done adjusting the tank water and deciding on the variety they’ll show off.
“It’s good to see a year and half of planning coming together now,” he said.
They’ll continue the site’s message of conservation and caring for the planet through these showy new exhibits.
“The jellyfish gallery is this weird, ethereal experience because people don’t know how to relate to these gelatinous creatures,” Whittaker said.
The exhibits will take visitors through the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, South Pacific, North Pacific and the Caribbean.
In the North Pacific exhibit, you’ll see kelp forest inhabitants — seals, sea lions, leopard sharks and rockfish. But the showstopper may well be
the giant Pacific octopus, a cephalopod that can span 12 feet, weigh up to 200 pounds and live up to five years.
Whittaker described the octopus as an essential part of modern aquariums because they are so popular with visitors.
“They have a bit of an alien personality — just weird enough that they’re fun to watch and track over a couple of visits,” he said. “Their color depends on their mood, and as masters of camouflage, they can replicate the look of whatever they’re up against and change their texture from a gravely bottom to sandy bottom.”
These creatures, with long billowy tentacles, have their own language as well, with behavioral cues to scare away other octopus or predators. “They do a whole array of language to signal what they’re thinking,” Whittaker said.
The octopus exhibit will be improved to create caves and crevices where they like to hang out.
What may prove another fan favorite will be a broader collection of penguins. The aquarium already has South Atlantic penguins. The new Humboldt penguin exhibit brings in warm-climate penguins who live in the Southern Hemisphere, from the Antarctic to the equator. The Humboldts range from small to medium size and are black and white but with larger beaks.
Closer to home, a colorful underwater photography exhibit will showcase the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary that’s just 115 miles offshore from Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico.
Visitors will see the variety of the coral reef that lives nearby: yellow lettuce or saucer coral, red Touch Me Not sponge (yes, it hurts if you touch it), red Strawberry Vase sponge, purple rope sponge, tan staghorn coral and the Branching Vase sponge, which looks like a bush of tan-colored branches.
Houston may be an oil and gas town, but few get to see a real-life oil rig. A two-story oil production platform and a lesson about these manmade islands and the role they play in their underwater ecosystem are part of the Gulf of Mexico exhibit.
A touch tank in the Caribbean exhibit allows visitors to touch cownose stingrays and bonnethead sharks as they swim among a jungle of stilt roots. You’ll spot a cownose ray for its brownish kite-shaped body and long whip tail. Bonnetheads are part of the hammerhead family and also have that spadelike head; on average, they’re 2 to 3 feet long.
Less intimidating sea life — small fish, starfish, hermit crabs and pencil urchins — will be in a second touch tank.