Mote featured in episode of A&E’s ‘The Glades’
Mote Marine Laboratory’s logo and actors playing Mote scientists appeared in the opening scenes of “The Glades,” a hit A&E original scripted drama series.
During the episode, when an $80-million Florida state lottery winner is found murdered on a remote island in Islandia, his body is discovered by fictional coral researchers from Mote Marine Laboratory, which has its base of operations in Sarasota and a coral research nursery in the Florida Keys. The episode aired at 9 p.m. EST on Sunday, Aug. 5, on the A&E network.
“The Glades” producers approached Mote about using its logo in the episode a few weeks ago, said Nadine Slimak, director of communications. “Mote’s reputation as a world-class lab precedes us,” Slimak said. “The show’s producers had heard of our Lab, knew we were based in Florida and asked to use our logo in the show. They thought it would be great to feature a real marine research lab instead of a fictional one and we thought it would be a fun way to meet a new audience.”
Mote coral research includes a staghorn coral nursery where corals are grown for later replanting on depleted reefs and other coral restoration efforts, studies of how ocean acidification affects corals and other species and even research on the microbiological makeup of corals. Many of these efforts are funded through sales of the Protect Our Reefs specialty Florida license plate.
The Glades, starring Matt Passmore, Kiele Sanchez, Carlos Gomez and Michelle Hurd, features Passmore as Jim Longworth, an attractive and brilliant Chicago homicide detective with a reputation for being difficult.
This won’t be the first time Mote has made an appearance in a work of popular fiction. Mote’s logo appeared in “Two Weeks Notice” with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant; a book written by Mote scientist, José Castro called “The Sharks of North American Waters” is being read by Gwyneth Paltrow in the opening scene of the movie “The Royal Tennenbaums” and Mote’s sturgeon expert, Jim Michaels, provided guidance on caviar to mystery novelist Randy Wayne White for his latest Doc Ford thriller, “Chasing Midnight,.”
