Long Beach aquarium exhibition focuses on baby creatures and protecting their habitats

The Aquarium of the Pacific is about to go into cuteness overload with a new exhibition celebrating the growing aqua babies at the Long Beach venue.

With the goal of urging the conservation of their environments, the Aquarium opens “Babies!” on May 27, a new exhibition featuring dozens of tiny sea creatures, adorable rescued sea otter pups and even soon-to-be-feared predators who are still in their terrible twos.

But while they’re young and cute, these animals have an important role as part of this exhibition.

“We’re displaying these cute little small animals and fish, but they have a very important story to tell. Through them, we are talking about the habitats they live in and the dangers to these habitats,” said Fahria Qader, director of Pacific Vision and Architecture for the Aquarium.

Located in the Aquarium’s Pacific Vision gallery, the exhibition is slated to run through next summer and will include color-changing baby cuttlefish, a sea jellyfish nursery lab, a young desert tortoise, baby sharks and other young fish exhibited in habitats like mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds.

Among the stars in the exhibition will be four recently rescued sea otters who are all between four-to-eight months old.

“These guys are very, very cute,” Quasar said.

Three of the youngest pups arrived at the Aquarium in January and have yet to be named while Ryder, who at eight months of age is the oldest of the bunch, arrived last fall.

They all still have quite a lot of growing to do since sea otters can live up to 22 years in captivity.

And while she’s not a sea creature, Sally, the juvenile desert tortoise, lives at the aquarium and is still a baby. Sally is estimated to be between 5-10 years old, which for a tortoise is still a baby since desert tortoises can live to around 80 years.

And cue the Baby Shark song because a group of bamboo and Epaulette sharks will be swimming around their nursery. They’re about two years old now but can live up to 25 years. Besides baby sharks, visitors will also see shark eggs, Qader said.

But all babies have to grow up at some point, so the exhibition will evolve as well.

“Because these are small little babies they can’t stay babies forever, so we’ll have to change them out and put new species in. So this is a good exhibit to come and see a few times because you will have new animals in there,” Qader said.

Aquarium of the Pacific

When: Aquarium hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. The exhibition runs from March 15-May 31.

Where: Aquarium of the Pacific, 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach.

Admission: $36.95 for adults, $33.95 for seniors 62 years of age and older, $26.95 for kids 3-11 and free for children under age three.

Information: 562-590-3100, aquariumofpacific.org