provided to The Santiva Chronicle
The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium continues its 2025 summer-fall lecture series with South Florida’s Seasonal Seas at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21.
The online lecture, led by Photographer and Photo-Naturalist Gabriel Jensen, will be offered live via Zoom and is free for registrants.
From the surface, the ocean looks the same to us humans year-round. But beneath the waves, the changing seasons bring forth epic underwater migrations and behaviors of marine life of all shapes and sizes, from mollusks to fish, sea turtles, sharks, groupers, and more.
By utilizing international award-winning photographs taken during thousands of hours underwater, Jensen uses anecdotes of adventure paired with population data to tell the story of South Florida’s underwater seasons, what they mean for marine animals, and why it matters.
Jensen is a photographer, biochemist, and photo-naturalist whose images of underwater microfauna have been featured by NOAA, BBC, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic, among others.
His photographs of nudibranchs are the focus of a new exhibition, Brilliant Colors of the Sea: Nudibranchs and Their Relatives, now on view at the museum.
Support for the lecture series is from the Sam and Francis Bailey Clean Water Education Center at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium.
Other upcoming online lectures include:
• Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, 5:30 p.m.: What Can Oysters Tell Us About the Restoration of the Everglades? by Stephen Geiger, Ph.D., Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
• Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, 5:30 p.m.: Gulf Seafood: Sustaining Wildlife and Our Way of Life by John Fallon, Audubon Nature Institute
Although free of charge, pre-registration for lectures is required. To register, visit ShellMuseum.org/learn-and-experience/lectures.