Always in motion: Many species of open ocean shark need to swim constantly to keep water flowing across their gills, and to keep themselves from sinking.

Long odds: Female green sea turtles can lay over 1,000 eggs in a year, but only a few hatchlings survive to become adults.

Mola means “millstone”: One of the largest animals we’ve ever had on exhibit was an 880-pound ocean sunfish, or Mola mola, that had to be airlifted out using a helicopter.

Inner warmth: Not all fish in the Outer Bay exhibit are cold-blooded! Bluefin tunas are able to keep their core body temperatures about 18 deg F above that of the exhibit.

Getting ahead: The scalloped hammerhead shark’s odd-shaped head distributes the small pores it uses to detect minute bio-electrical fields from its prey. This may help it catch food or even navigate the oceans.

Growth years: The fastest-growing fish in the Outer Bay exhibit is the common dolphinfish, also known as the dorado or mahi mahi. These fish can grow to over six feet long in less than five years!

Heavy eaters: We feed Outer Bay animals about 1,000 pounds of squid, smelt and vitamin-supplemented gelatin every week.

Playing the numbers: The most prolific fish in the Outer Bay exhibit is the giant ocean sunfish, or Mola mola. In the wild, large females are reported to produce over one million eggs every spawning season! Needless to say, most of these eggs never become adult animals.

Underwater flier: Most rays live on the seafloor, but our pelagic stingrays live in the water column far offshore. Using their wing-like fins to “fly,” these stealth cruisers hunt down fishes, squid and crustaceans.

One of the world’s biggest windows: The main viewing window into the Outer Bay exhibit is 56.5 feet long, 17 feet tall, and 13 inches thick! It weighs 78,000 pounds, and was lowered into place by a special crane that was constructed above the tank—just for this one job!

A watery world: About 1.3 million gallons of water passes through the Outer Bay exhibit every day. However, only 80,000 gallons are “fresh” sea water from the ocean—the rest is filtered and recirculated.

Our visitors are hot: The water in the Outer Bay exhibit is kept at about 68 deg F—much warmer than the water in Monterey Bay. The heat used to warm the water comes courtesy of our visitors, whose body heat is captured in a very efficient heat exchange system!

Our fish are safe behind their bubble curtain: At night, the main exhibit window is obscured by a curtain of bubbles that rise from a long pipe just below the window. This helps the fish see the window when the lights on the “dry side” are turned up for cleaning.

Target training: Our aquarists train several of the slower-swimming species, including sea turtles and ocean sunfish, to swim to underwater targets at mealtime. In that way, these animals can be hand-fed, and don’t have to compete with speedy tunas for their meals.

Tanning booth: Our sea turtles occasionally “catch some rays” in a holding pool just outside the main exhibit. Exposure to direct sunlight helps their bodies manufacture vitamin D, which is important for their health.

An illusion of depth: There are more than one million gallons of water in the exhibit, but one-third is hidden behind a fiberglass “eggshell.” This structure forms a smoothly curved surface, creating the illusion that there is no “back wall” at all!

Do sharks sleep? Fish don't sleep in the same way that we do, but they have active and inactive periods. Some sharks (like the nurse shark) have been observed resting motionless on the seafloor. Others have to keep moving in order to breathe.