animals

Roam ‘Nature's Underwater Cities' on This Aquarium Tour

The virtual Tropical Pacific Gallery event will take a deep dive every Sunday, giving at-home viewers a peek at coral reefs and fascinating fishes.

Robin Riggs

What to Know

  • Sundays at 12:45 p.m.
  • $10 per household
  • The virtual tour will visit the aquarium's Tropical Pacific Gallery and the "Coral Reefs: Nature's Underwater Cities" exhibit

So many city-focused explorations have popped up on our screens since the spring of 2020, the sorts of virtual tours that take an at-home adventurer into handsome neighborhoods, by buildings of note, and through areas that have historic cred to spare.

It's been a way to connect with either our own urban environment, or other cities we love or would like to visit, during the stay-at-home days of the pandemic.

But what if you could venture into a "city," of sorts, that wasn't built out of bricks and glass but rather coral, and sand, and the organic materials found in the Big Blue?

Then you'd be entering "Nature's Underwater Cities," those fascinating, otherworldly places that the Aquarium of the Pacific is calling upon during its newest virtual tour.

In fact, "Coral Reefs: Nature's Underwater Cities," the Long Beach-based aquatic institution's newest exhibit, is where you'll be headed on the just-introduced Sunday tour, as well as into the Tropical Pacific Gallery.

"Viewers can learn more about their favorite animals, see behind-the-scenes areas not currently open to the public, and meet the animal care experts and ask them questions," is the fin-tastic word on what this tour will delightfully encompass.

"Because this exhibit was only open to the public for a brief time during the summer due to closures associated with the pandemic, the Aquarium is sharing it with the public now through this virtual tour."

You'll even have the opportunity to admire a red-footed booby named Sula during the $10 event. And here's something thrilling: She'll fly through the Tropical Tunnel, making your from-home tour extra-memorable.

The ten-dollar ticket, by the by, is not per person but rather includes whole household, so send out the call to all the ocean aficionados under your roof.

We called the coral reefs of the ocean "otherworldly" earlier, but they're very much of our own world, of course.

So getting to know and understand them, through this engaging and educational virtual tour, is an important must-do for those landlubbers who love sharing this planet with a host of wonderful water-based beasties.

The Aquarium of the Pacific is temporarily closed to the public.

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