How an Aquarium Collects Curious Creatures From the Deep

There are two types of people aboard the research vessel Rachel Carson: There's me, quite sick and spending a good amount of time on the deck trying to keep an eye on the bobbing horizon, and there are the scientists minding the remotely operated vehicle dangling below us. Sitting in a chair with a joystick on the armrest, surrounded by glowing monitors in an otherwise darkened room, a pilot guides the SUV-sized robot through a galaxy of life--little fishes, free-swimming crustaceans, jellyfish, and other gelatinous critters that dart out of the way--stopping every so often to cross something off a species shopping list. Scientists with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and its associated Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, are on a methodical hunt for specimens for a new exhibit, Into the Deep, opening in the spring. It'll be loaded with exceedingly fragile, rarely seen animals kept healthy in life-support systems that aquarists have taken years to perfect. "Some of them we call'wet tissue paper,'" says Wyatt Patry, a senior aquarist, speaking of the species they're seeking.