The intriguing and engaging Sharks: Myth and Mystery - a celebration of sharks and rays from around the world and the rich cultural traditions they have inspired - will close on September 4, 2006. Sharks is home to nearly two-dozen species in some of the largest live-animal displays ever created for a special exhibition at the aquarium. It features zebra sharks, scalloped hammerhead sharks, Southern stingrays, freshwater rays, catsharks and many other species. Visitors can gently touch shark and ray pups, try on replica shark totem masks, and even make shark-related crafts in a family activity room.

Visitors to Sharks can wind through seven galleries, each rich with music, stories or art, and each exploring different cultural connections to sharks and rays. Highlights include African headdresses modeled after hammerhead sharks; Australian Aboriginal bark paintings of sharks and rays; shark masks and costumes of the Haida people of the Pacific Northwest; and shark tales from the sublime to the silly in the Western Myths and Legends gallery: New Yorker cartoons, a chilling legend about shark attacks on the crew of the USS Indianapolis (as famously retold in the movie "Jaws") - and even a "Saturday Night Live" landshark skit.

For summer visitors, exploring will mean a full lineup of Aquarium Adventures programs, including behind-the-scenes tours, Science Under Sail excursions on Monterey Bay and children's scuba diving in the Great Tide Pool. Check the aquarium's website for further details.

The Ocean's Edge galleries, which opened last summer, finalized a two-year long re-creation of the original aquarium. This followed an earlier renovation of the aquarium's main entrance and ticketing lobby, and completion of exhibits interpreting the historic Hovden Cannery that once occupied the site.

Monterey's facility opened back in 1984, kicking off a wave of aquarium projects throughout the U.S. Its mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans. Open daily except Christmas Day.

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Monterey Bay Aquarium
886 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940
(800) 756-3737
(831) 648-4888