Drifting in San Francisco Bay are millions of tiny larvae. Each one needs a hard surface where it can settle and grow. The organisms you can see at this exhibit all grew on our “settling plates” after just a few weeks.
What you might find on the settling plate on any particular day at this exhibit is anyone’s guess. Skeleton shrimp with eerie red eyes, barnacles grabbing for prey, the occasional polka-dotted nudibranch—it’s an exciting world in the briny Bay beneath the museum. And the cast of characters changes with the seasons.
