There’s maybe no animal in the world more blissfully uninformed of the chaos humanity is coming down into than the jellyfish. I mean, it doesn’t even have a brain, just a basic nervous system that allows it to leisurely pulse around the oceans. Yet a few amongst the jellies ran the risk of getting caught up in the turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic: As the Monterey Bay Fish tank in California closed to the public, someone needed to keep looking after the jellyfish.
That someone is jellyfish aquarist MacKenzie Bubel. She’s been working relentlessly behind the scenes– as socially-distanced from her colleagues as possible, of course– to reproduce and raise a range of types, from the popular moon jelly to the comb jellies, which in fact are a different group from true jellyfish. Each species has its own dietary requirements and reproductive eccentricities, but all have one thing in typical: They’re exceptionally delicate and incredibly hard to raise in captivity.
Simply how challenging
