These aren't the kind of stuffed animals you can cuddle up to. But you can enjoy their peculiar beauty — and, while you're at it, learn something about protecting the planet.
"Voices From the Water" is an exhibit of 21 brightly colored, anatomically accurate sea creatures sculpted from handmade felt. Created by Susan J Sperl, they're on display through Nov. 20 at the Westminster Gallery in Minneapolis, part of the gallery's 20th anniversary celebration.
The exhibit is about "the stories told by each sea creature about their role in maintaining the health of the ocean web," Sperl said. "Hence the title 'Voices From the Water.'"
The sculptures are crafted from felt that Sperl makes by mashing together strands of wool. Their vivid colors aren't just decorative choices; most reflect the creatures' natural pigmentation.
Labels alongside the sculptures describe how evolution has equipped them with diverse physiologies for eating, breathing and protecting themselves. The leafy sea dragon's leaf-like appendages, for example, provide camouflage amid sea vegetation. The Spanish shawl is covered with spiky projections that play a part in breathing and digestion and contain stinging cells for self-defense.
"They've survived because they've evolved some adaptive strategies," Sperl said.

The labels include fun facts: The chain catshark can emit green fluorescent light, the masked pufferfish can inflate itself to appear much larger. And be sure to direct your third-grader to the bumphead parrotfish, which makes its own protective sleeping bag from mucus (snot!) and excretes bits of ingested coral (poop!) in the form of sand that helps build tropical beaches.
But some touch on the grimmer topic of how the animals' existence is threatened by human activities.