Jellies: Phantoms of the Deep offers visitors the rare chance to see jellyfish as they really are—delicate and mesmerizing creatures who are nettlesome to swimmers only because they’re doing what jellyfish do.

The jellies gallery is the first in a series of changing shows designed to make each visit to the aquarium new and exciting. It will be replaced by another aquatic exhibit in the year 2000. The Aquarium’s aquarists area bred and acquired jellies for the new gallery.

"We want our visitors to have the opportunity to experience the magical and mystical world of the jellies, as well as all the other amazing wonders of the aquatic world," says Charlie Arant, Aquarium president.

Amazing it is. Imagine observing the swimming behavior of baby moon jellies in a hand-held jelly-wand. Or step up to one of the interactive stations to find out more about the lion’s mane jelly that captured your interest with its long tentacles. Visitors of all ages will find the jellies gallery a technical and aesthetic marvel complete with ethereal music, dim lighting and hundreds of pulsating, glowing, shimmering, phantom-like jellies.

The sea nettles, moon jellies, lion’s mane and elegant jellies range in size from contact lenses to dinner plates, and in color from iridescent white to shades of pink and brown. Their bodies, or "bells," trail long, thread-like tentacles and frilly ruffles in an eerie ballet.

Jellyfish—despite their name—are not fish but invertebrate relatives of sea anemones and corals. Jellies are 97 percent water. With no heart, no brain and no real eyes, jellyfish have three main parts—the round umbrella-like bodies which propel the animals with a pumping or pulsating motions, tentacles that sting and immobilize prey, and oral arms or flaps that are used to eat the prey.