A new daily program features “Makana,” a 16-month-old Laysan albatross (Diomedea immutablis) – an oceanic seabird and only one of her kind at any U.S. aquarium or zoo. The program introduces this fascinating and rare bird to visitors to raise public awareness about the global threats facing albatross and other Pacific seabirds from a vast blanket of plastics pollution floating on the ocean’s surface.

“Makana is a wonderful ambassador for her species,” said aquarium Curator Christina Slager, “and the program is a good way to remind people how important it is to recycle plastics. If we don’t, this is the kind of beautiful animal that is threatened.”

On Midway Atoll, the major breeding ground for Laysan albatross, 40 percent of newly hatched chicks die each year, their stomachs choked with plastic debris that parent birds mistake for the fish and squid they regurgitate to feed the chicks. The U.N. Environment Program estimates that 46,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square mile of the ocean.

Makana, whose name means “gift” in native Hawaiian, will have a 6-foot wingspan when mature. At four months old, she suffered a wing injury and was unable to return to the wild. U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife officials needed to find a permanent home for her – a home the Monterey Bay Aquarium has provided. She arrived in Monterey on Nov. 18 from Kauai and remained behind the scenes while aquarium staff trained her for public appearances.

Summer visitors to the aquarium will also find two exotic species of jellyfish in the Jellies: Living Art special exhibition – the largest black sea nettle on exhibit in the world (Chrysaora achlyos) and rare spotted comb jellies (Leucothea pulchra).

In four months, staff cultured the huge black sea nettle behind the scenes from an ephyra (juvenile jelly) the size of a grain of rice into an animal about 10 feet long and with a bell as big as a basketball. While behind the scenes, this jelly was housed alone to avoid tangling tentacles with other jellies and to promote growth. It was also fed a lot – brine shrimp, nauplii (baby brine shrimp), krill and a few species of other jellies.

In the wild, black sea nettles can reach a bell diameter of three feet, with oral arms up to 20 feet in length and tentacles 25 feet long. Despite its distinctive size, it was only recently officially described by biologists as a new species and is the largest invertebrate to have been described in the 20th century.

Spotted comb jellies are considered among the most beautiful and complex of all comb jellies, or ctenophores (TEEN-oh-forz). They are extremely delicate, and therefore ephemeral exhibit animals; they could be around for a few days, weeks or possibly months.

This is only the third appearance of spotted comb jellies in the aquarium’s history, and Monterey Bay Aquarium remains the only aquarium in the world to exhibit this incredible species.

Leucothea pulchra – which means “beautiful white spectacle”—is a shallow-water species found only in the Pacific Ocean between Central California and the Sea of Cortez. It can grow to over a foot long; the ones at the aquarium are about eight inches long.

Marine scientists have long been fascinated not only with the spotted comb jelly’s other-worldly looks, but also with its complex feeding and propulsion behaviors. It is the only ctenophore to travel using jet propulsion, curling its oral lobes and squirting water between them at very high velocity. It also can “fly” underwater by slowly flapping its lobes, producing power strokes to generate forward motion.

The spotted jelly is also unusual because it can gather food in three distinctly different ways. An adult spotted comb jelly swims horizontally with its large oral lobes open like wide doors to funnel food inside. It can also manipulate food using four worm-like auricles, which it waves around like antennae. As a juvenile, the spotted comb jelly can also gather food using two trailing tentacles. -- www.mbayaq.org