Curator of Fish Andres Lopez joined the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) cruise in the summer of 2012. He was there to get a better understanding of the distribution of fish in the Chukchi Sea and to bring specimens back to the museum.

Stemming from a 2003 Memorandum of Understanding for World Ocean and Polar Regions Studies between NOAA and the Russian Academy of Sciences, these cruises began in 2004 under RUSALCA, which means mermaid in the Russian language.