On a winter visit to Boston’s huge New England Aquarium, in bitter weather, I stuck to the indoor exhibits (sorry, seals!) and found myself focusing on color as we wound our way up the spiral walkway that surrounds the huge central tank.
The colors varied from subtle to outrageous, and quite a few colors shifted as we viewed them, due to different lighting conditions and water depths. Of course, some aquarium denizens, above, chose to evade the dress code and kept to the monochrome.
And some of the color was in the building’s lighting itself, always kept soft and never too bright for the benefit of the residents.
Lobsters come in more colors than most people realize, although most turn the typical bright red when boiled, a fate most unlikely for the large blue one above.
In the dim light and in the water, blue and green seem the most popular colors, in many shades.
But there are flashes of yellow, sometimes in the midst of a seething mass of fish, and sometimes in an intimate portrait: One fish, one turtle. It wasn’t clear if the turtle was aware of the fish eating bits of…bits of something on his back.
And there are the stunning pinks and oranges and whites to be seen, and less assertive, almost ghost-like ‘quiet’ colors.
The Weedy Seadragon, a native only of Australia’s waters, appears to have a brocaded skin in neon colors and looks, frankly, as if it had been created by Dr. Seuss. There are also Wood Seadragons, but there weren’t any on view.
Near the top of the tank, colors change again and motion forms patterns that might remind one of Monet’s Water Lily paintings.
Our enigmatic sea turtles again, appearing green at the surface and blue underwater.
