Hey there.
My name is Maggy Benson and I'm a Museum Educator
at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Today you're in for a real treat.
We're going on a special VIP tour of the Sant Ocean Hall
with my colleague, Lara Noren,
an Ocean and Climate Education Specialist.
We're going to get up close and personal
with some giants of the sea, like whales, squid, and sharks,
and explore the giant questions we have
about these ocean giants.
And later, we'll take you behind the scenes
to our Aqua Room, which houses real live jellies.
Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go.
Hey, Lara, what are you doing?
Hey, Maggy.
Well, I'm trying to measure this giant kelp here,
but it is just so giant, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I think you're gonna need a ladder.
I think so, too.
So I heard you want to learn about some of
the giants we have in our Sant Ocean Hall
at the Natural History Museum.
- That's right, Lara.
I have some giant questions about some of the giants here,
and I brought along my field notebook
so I can record some of those observations.
- We can use our field notebook to think about
some of the giant questions that you have,
and then also some of the giant questions
that scientists are asking about some of these specimens
I'm gonna show you today.
- So where do we start?
- Well, let's start right here at our giant kelp.
This giant kelp can get up to 175 feet tall
and it can grow up to almost two feet per day, Maggy.
You might overlook this specimen when you first enter
our Ocean Hall, but I really want you
to understand how important it is.
It's important because it is
what we call an ecosystem engineer.
That means that it maintains
the balance of an entire ecosystem.
- Lara, are kelp like forests of the sea>
- Yeah, Maggy.
So I bet you're kind of thinking that it kind of
looks like a bit of a tree, right?
So this is an algae, and this kelp here is really important
because it acts like the baseline of an ecosystem,
like a tree would in a forest.
All of these animals and plants that are living
in a kelp forest are relying on this kelp for habitat,
for food and for shelter.
- Lara, what kind of animals are in kelp ecosystems?
- There are so many different animals.
We have animals that live kind of at the base.
We have sea urchins and sea stars and small fish.
- Lobsters?
- And lobsters. Yes, exactly.
And octopus as well.
And then in the mid-section of the kelp forest,
we have a lot of sharks and maybe otters and seals.
- Who doesn't love a cute otter wrapped in a bunch of kelp?
- At the top, at the canopy, we even have
things like birds and of course, more fish
and things like orcas.
- Lara, I know what I want to record
in my field notebook at this stop.
I want to draw a kelp forest.
- Yes, I think that would be very kelpful.
So let's think about some of those animals
that I talked about before, because all of those animals
rely on the kelp.
- Lara, what kind of giant questions
are scientists asking today to learn more
about kelp forests and how to conserve them?
- Some scientists are asking, how are kelp
going to respond as the ocean continues to warm?
They want to really know at what degree
these kelp forests are going to decline,
and also maybe what humans can do to help keep
these kelp forests strong and healthy as the ocean warms.
- Lara, where to next?
- We've looked at the bottom of the food chain
or the baseline of an entire ecosystem.
Now I want to take you to the very top.
I want to show you an apex predator.
- Cool. Let's go.
- Maggy, behold, our apex predator.
This is our megalodon model.
Megalodon were up to 60 feet long.
They weighed up to 50 tons and they were
about three times the size of great white sharks today.
- Lara, standing here in the shadow of this megalodon
is kind of thrilling and a little bit scary,
even though it's just a model.
- It's huge, right? Giant.
So these megalodon sharks lived from
about 23 million years ago to about 3.6 million years ago.
- So they're extinct.
- Yes.
(relieved sighing)
Scientists are very sure that the megalodon is extinct.
3.6 million years ago, they abruptly left the fossil record
and we do not see any megalodon teeth
after 3.6 million years, so you can be confident
on your next beach trip that you will not
be encountering a megalodon shark.
- That jaw is huge.
- It is huge, giant.
So this jaw produced a bite force of 40,000 pounds.
- What does that mean?
- The largest bite force in the animal kingdom.
So that's the power at which it could just close its jaw,
and that's about 10 times greater bite force
than a great white shark today.
- There's a lot of teeth in that mouth.
- Yes, and I actually have one
to show you right here, Maggy.
So this is a megalodon tooth, and these teeth
are very important for understanding the megalodon
because this tooth is actually the only thing
that fossilizes from sharks.
Do you want to take a look?
- This tooth is huge.
- The teeth can be up to seven inches long.
And for comparison, we have a mako tooth right here
that you can take a look at that is much smaller.
- [Maggy] So a mako shark is kind of a big shark today,
but this is no comparison to the megalodon.
- Yep, definitely, and mako sharks are actually
the closest living relatives of the megalodon.
A lot of people think that it might be
the great white shark,
(buzzer buzzing)
but actually it's the mako, which is why we have
our megalodon model modeled after a mako shark.
- So is that something that scientists can determine
from the teeth that are left behind?
You said that's the only thing that fossilizes.
- So most of the fossils that we look at with megalodon
are teeth, and that's because the rest of the shark
is made out of cartilage, and cartilage you can find
like in your ear right here.
That cartilage is just not gonna show up
in the fossil record like the teeth do.
So most scientists really just rely on the teeth
to answer these giant questions that we have
about our megalodon sharks.
- What do megalodons eat?
- Scientists can look at fossilized bones of whales
and actually see shards of megalodon teeth
embedded in the bone, ar they can see scrapes
on whale bones from megalodon teeth, so from that evidence,
we know that megalodon would eat whales.
And we also know that they would eat things like sea turtles
and most likely probably other sharks as well.
- Lara, in my field notebook, I'm gonna draw
a megalodon tooth and I'm gonna record
some ideas about what megalodon ate like whales and turtles.
- I think that's a great idea, 'cause we know how important
these fossilized teeth are to understanding megalodon.
- What other big questions
do scientists have today about megalodon?
- Scientists are able to ask a lot of questions
about the megalodon like, where did it live?
How long was it in the fossil record for?
What caused an extinction? What did it eat?
What role did it play in an ecosystem?
And then how did that ecosystem change
when this animal went extinct?
So Maggy, let's transition now from this ancient
ocean predator of our past and learn about
an iconic ocean representative that still swims
in our ocean today.
Maggy, I'd like you to meet Phoenix.
- She's beautiful.
- Phoenix is a North Atlantic right whale,
and they can be about 50 to 60 feet long
and they can weigh up to 70 tons.
- That's huge.
- Pretty giant.
And you can find them on the east coast
of the United States.
They breed in the Georgia and Florida area,
and then they migrate all the way up to the Bay of Fundy,
which is in Canada.
Phoenix is our Ocean Hall ambassador.
She is overlooking the entire space.
We use her to talk about conservation and ocean preservation
and also how groups of animals can be impacted by humans.
Phoenix is named Phoenix because she was entangled,
at one point in fishing line, and when a whale
gets entangled in fishing line, that's very dangerous,
but she was able to free herself from that fishing line
and produced children and grandchildren like a phoenix.
she rose from the ashes and lived a very long
and healthy and happy life.
- Why do they call them right whales?
- The term right whale was coined because
they were the right whale for whalers to hunt.
One reason is when they are shot, they actually float.
So it was really easy for these whalers
to be able to bring these whales onto their boat.
And then also, because they really like to hang out
at the surface of the ocean, they don't dive very deep
and they're pretty docile.
They were a crowd favorite of the whalers and so much so
that in the 1930s, there were only about 100
North Atlantic right whale left.
Now we have about 300 to 400 in our ocean.
Scientists are able to track each individual
North Atlantic right whale through photographs.
They actually are able to identify each specific
individual right whale through something called callosities,
and those were those bumps that you can see
on Phoenix's face right there.
These callosities are unique to each individual whale.
It's kind of like freckles on your face.
It's not gonna look the same. No two are alike.
- How much food do whales have to eat a day to get so big?
- Phoenix is going to eat about 26,000 pounds a day
to maintain this giant size, and they do that
through a very special process.
They use baleen. You want to take a look, Maggy?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- So this probably looks very different
than the teeth that you are familiar with in your own mouth.
- This looks more like my hair than my teeth.
- Yeah, that is a really great observation.
So this is keratin and it is the exact same thing
that our hair is made out of.
- And so how does this work?
How do whales eat with this?
- So these baleen plates, they will hang down
from Phoenix's mouth.
They will catch a bunch of these tiny copepod
and krill in these hairs, they get stuck.
From there, what they do is they take their tongue
and they lick the baleen sheets, and then they swallow
all of that krill,
- 26,000 pounds of krill and copepods a day.
They must be feeding all day and all night.
- Basically yeah, they are filter feeders
so they will go around in the ocean,
kind of passively feeding pretty much all the time.
And Maggy, I have something else to show you.
- Okay.
- Do you have any guess to what this is?
- It looks like a bone of some sort,
but it's not really the color.
- What if I told you that was whale ear wax?
- Um, what?
- Yeah, so that is a model,
so it's a 3D print of whale ear wax.
- What kind of things are scientists learning
by studying whales' ear wax?
- Well, it's not like our ear wax, Maggy.
So it builds up over time.
This whale is gonna have this ear wax in its ear
for its entire life and whales, they can live
a really long time, 50, 60, 70 years.
So this earwax is collecting a bunch of information
from the ocean and it's allowing scientists to understand
the environment that a whale lives in, and then also
how that whale is responding to the environment.
So it's kind of like a composite,
like a map and a weather station all at once.
- There's a couple of things I want to record
in my field notebook.
Fishing entanglements are a problem for North Atlantic
right whales, and North Atlantic right whales
eat 26,000 pounds of copepods and krill in a day.
- Up next, Maggy, we're going to journey
deep into the ocean where it's cold and it's dark,
and we have another ocean giant just waiting to meet us.
- Exciting. Let's dive in.
- So Maggy, welcome to our giant squid.
- This squid is huge.
How big can giant squid get and how much can they weigh?
- Giant squid can get about 40 feet long
and they can weigh nearly a ton.
- How deep in the ocean do giant squid live?
- They can live between 1,500 feet and 3,000 feet.
- Wow!
- In total darkness, it's dark, it's cold.
This is one of two that we have here at the museum.
This is a male right here, and then around the corner,
we have our female giant squid, which is even bigger.
That one is about 24 feet long.
This giant squid was caught by fishermen
off the coast of Spain, and the government of Spain
was able to give the Smithsonian, on a loan,
this giant squid for us to use for education purposes
and now it lives here.
- It looks like the squid has some big eyes.
- You know what, Maggy? I have a special treat for you.
I want to show you a model of this giant squid eye
that we show to visitors at the museum all the time.
- Let me see this!
It looks like it is definitely bigger than my head.
- I would have to agree with that.
It's about the size of a dinner plate
and it is the largest eye in the animal kingdom.
And it is one of also the most advanced eyes
of any invertebrate, it's very good at seeing.
- Why does it have such huge eyes?
- Yeah, that is a great question.
One of those giant questions that we can think about here.
Scientists might think that it's so it can see prey.
Remember, it's really deep and dark in the ocean,
so there is not light there.
So maybe they're using this giant eye
to see bioluminescent animals, get away from predators.
- Lara, these squid are cloaked in mystery and folklore.
- Yes, these squid have fascinated people
for thousands of years.
If you've heard of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,"
or if you've heard of the Kraken before,
both of those are lore and legend about giant squid,
and as scientists have learned more
about what actually a giant squid is,
we've been able to dismiss some of those folklore,
even though they are still really fun
to think about culturally.
- So the science is helping us to fill in
where our imagination took the place.
- Exactly, exactly.
And people have been fascinated with this
from a scientific perspective for a really long time too.
The first specimen that was collected was in 1874,
and the person that collected it
ended up putting it in its bathtub.
- Well, where else are you going to put a giant squid?
- That's a Lot of tentacles to keep a hold of.
- So what have scientists learned since 1874
about the giant squid and what kind of questions
and tools do they have to answer those questions?
- As technology has improved,
so has our understanding of the giant squid.
We have these amazing things called ROVs,
remote operated underwater vehicles,
and AUVs, automated underwater vehicles.
- These are like robots.
- Yeah, it's basically like just sending a camera down
thousands and thousands of feet and hoping
a giant squid will show up.
- And it happens?
- It has, it has happened a couple of times.
And did you know that the first live giant squid
was caught on camera in 2004, not that long ago.
- Lara, for my field notebook, I want to record some ideas
for how to catch these on camera again in the future.
Lara, thanks so much for giving me this awesome tour
of the Sant Ocean Hall and some of the giants
that call it home.
- Yeah, thank you so much for joining us,
and Maggy, before you go, you have one more stop
on this tour, behind the scenes in the Aqua Room
with Dr. Allen Collins.
He's gonna tell you a little bit more
about another invertebrate that we have in our ocean.
- Allen, thank you so much for having us.
I've never been in this space before.
Can you tell me where we are?
- Absolutely. We are in the Aqua Room.
It is a facility where we keep live animals.
- We've been looking at some giant specimens
in the Ocean Hall, and now we're looking
at some smaller ones.
- Yeah, they may be small, but they make giant populations.
And those giant populations have a really big impact
on our ocean and on planet earth.
- How big are those populations?
- So that's one of the things that jellies
are really good at is making big populations
through their life cycle.
Many jellies can be present in very large numbers
for a particular period of time.
- [Maggy] And clone themselves.
- They clone themselves all over the place
and they just wait for conditions to be good.
When they all bloom like that,
they create these massive populations
and those are really important in the marine ecosystem
for a lot of different reasons.
- Well, let's just pause for a moment
and take a look at these jellies because they are so cool.
I feel like I can watch this tank forever.
- It's really mesmerizing, right?
To watch them floating around in there
because they're constantly in movement
and it's sort of, there's a pattern to it,
but it's also a bit chaotic.
It's a lot like watching flames, like a fireplace.
- Allen, what's it like when you get stung by a jellyfish?
- Well, it depends on the jellyfish.
Pretty much every time you go on the ocean,
you're getting stung by jellyfish.
So you've been in the ocean, yeah?
- Oh yeah, and I've been stung.
- You were stung and noticed.
You were probably also stung and not noticing.
So lots of jellies are small and they have
very small stinging capsules and so when they sting you,
you can't feel it.
Or maybe where you're a little have thin skin,
or you're sensitive around your lips,
you might feel a little tingling or itching.
And then that goes all the way up to,
a little tentacle gets on you, you notice it right away,
it hurts and will create red marks and stuff like that,
to a real problem.
So there's a few jellyfish that can make people sick
and even kill them in five minutes or so.
The majority of the jellyfish are not bad stingers,
but that's an association that a lot of people have
with them that's sort of negative.
But then on the flip side, people are often
really excited about them and they love to watch them
in aquaria, and so it's kinda neat that way.
- Allen, thank you so much for showing us
behind the scenes in the Aqua Room today
and introducing us to your jellies.
- Totally my pleasure.
- I'm so glad we got to explore
the Sant Ocean Hall together today.
We got to see some giant specimens
and Lara helped us think about the even bigger questions
scientists can ask by studying them.
We also met Dr. Allen Collins, who taught us
that tiny jellies can be giants too.
We hope you enjoyed this very special tour
of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.