SARASOTA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Mote SEA stands for Science Education Aquarium, and it has more than 100 species of marine life.<\/p>\n
Mote SEA opened on Oct. 8, 2025, and it\u2019s had capacity crowds almost daily, according to Mote Communications Coordinator Kathryn Gentile.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have three floors here and it\u2019s meant to be experienced from the top down,\u201d explained Gentile.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s on the third floor we find fan favorites \u2014 the otters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very, very sweet \u2014 and I mean, if any child or adult comes in with an otter stuffed animal, they will follow the stuffed animals around back and forth \u2014 they are like puppies,\u201d said Gentile.<\/p>\n
The manatees are around the corner on the third floor.<\/p>\n
Lou is missing part of his tail from a boat strike, and the other permanent resident is Buffett.<\/p>\n
Like Mote\u2019s former public space on Sarasota Bay, laboratories have glass walls so you can see the science, like young coral growing, destined for Florida reefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMote is a research institute first and foremost,\u201d said Gentile. \u201cAnd so, we want to bring the research into Mote SEA so people can be part of it. And even more so, we want to offer internships and mentorships to people.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s training here for a future job in this industry.<\/p>\n
Also on the second floor, a chance to hang out close and personal with a waddle of Humboldt penguins. You can poke your head up and into their habitat thanks to a dome.<\/p>\n
People happily stand in line for a chance to crouch low under the habitat, into the dome and stand up to be eye level with penguins.<\/p>\n
Finally on the first floor, children get right up to the aquarium glass to see sharks swim right over them as the tank continues upward at a curve.<\/p>\n
And along with grown-ups, children also explore the touch tanks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful to see the next generations wanting to become ocean stewards,\u201d said Gentile. \u201cThey are wanting to educate themselves. They want to know how they can best protect the oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n
All this \u2014 to buttress the future of marine research, education and conservation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Mote SEA stands for Science Education Aquarium, and it has more than 100 species of marine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7150,28,7151,115,139,4135,135,137,136,7148,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-161576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-florida-on-a-tankful","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-on-a-tankful","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-sarasota-county","14":"tag-tampa","15":"tag-tampa-headlines","16":"tag-tampa-news","17":"tag-virginia-johnson","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}