Monterey Bay Aquarium

In the coastal town of Monterey Country in the US state of California on Highway 1, about 185 km north of San Francisco and about 560 km south of Los Angeles, you will find the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which opened in 1984 and is one of the largest show aquariums in the world. The aquarium was built on the site of a former sardine preservation factory on Cannery Row by a generous donation of $55 million from David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard. More than 35,000 rare and colourful marine animals of 550 species, from nudibranchs to starfish, dainty jellyfish, playful sea otters, slippery octopuses and giant moonfish, penguins and powerful sharks, live here in about 200 different tanks. Every minute, about 7,570 litres of seawater are pumped into the aquariums. During the day, this water is filtered so that visitors can see the fish better. At night, however, the plankton-rich water is pumped in unfiltered, providing food and nutrients for the creatures. The largest tank, "The Outer Bay", holds almost four million litres of water. Other focal points of the Monterey Bay Aquarium are a large kelp forest tank, the collection of various jellyfish species, the intertidal zone, which is home to the African penguins, and the sea otters, which can also be observed in the wild from the terrace. The Monterey Bay Aquarium receives around two million visitors, young and old, every year, making it one of the most popular destinations on the Californian coast.