Seattle Aquarium Seattle Aquarium 'Ocean Pavilion' Grand Opening Species List

Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
I think Monterey will probably receive them, they've currently got 3 Females AFAIK and PDZA's trio are also all females, so there shouldn't be any compatibility issues between them, and those are the only Sharks in Monterey Bay's Open Sea tank which is double the size of ours. We're also going to have some smaller rays on exhibit (Javanese Cownose Rays for now, the Leopard Whipray and Eagle Rays are safe I'm sure, as in not potential prey items) so that also poses some other problems. Realistically MBA will probably get them, though they would be awesome to have here
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Goddamn haha, you have a real wealth of knowledge about your local facilities! For someone so young that’s incredibly impressive. Yeah, females and females would match up right, and certainly the tank size and other residents do as well. I can’t imagine they’d have a huge problem being exhibited with Javanese cownoses as the great hammerhead over at Adventure is tolerant enough of his cownose neighbors…so long as he doesn’t get hungry, of course, which has happened lol. But yeah on the whole MBA seems more likely.

Perhaps I’m just greedy in my own chosen specialty, but I always wanna see more unique and interesting elasmos in aquaria. It would be so cool to see you guys get in, say, a bignose shark or an Australian blacktip or something else wild from the Indo-Pacific. But of course, pretty much only shark taxonomy nerds like myself would be all that amazed by yet another gray requiem shark! ;)
 
Local_Shark said:
Goddamn haha, you have a real wealth of knowledge about your local facilities! For someone so young that’s incredibly impressive. Yeah, females and females would match up right, and certainly the tank size and other residents do as well. I can’t imagine they’d have a huge problem being exhibited with Javanese cownoses as the great hammerhead over at Adventure is tolerant enough of his cownose neighbors…so long as he doesn’t get hungry, of course, which has happened lol. But yeah on the whole MBA seems more likely.

Perhaps I’m just greedy in my own chosen specialty, but I always wanna see more unique and interesting elasmos in aquaria. It would be so cool to see you guys get in, say, a bignose shark or an Australian blacktip or something else wild from the Indo-Pacific. But of course, pretty much only shark taxonomy nerds like myself would be all that amazed by yet another gray requiem shark! ;)
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Thanks! A lot of it helps by have being been technically on the staff for those 2 years, you hear a lot through the grapevine lol

Definitely, I know that the Bowmouth Guitarfish is a potential candidate for the ReShark program now that there a decent amount of Aquariums that house them so maybe in the future we'll bring in a Male somehow. If another fishery rescue were to happen with a rare shark species, I'd imagine we'd be able to take them in. Now that you mention it, I wanna ask someone who's been here for a long time on how many missed opportunities we've had with taking in potential Elasmo species since we didn't have any tropical tank big enough to house them.
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Thanks! A lot of it helps by have being been technically on the staff for those 2 years, you hear a lot through the grapevine lol

Definitely, I know that the Bowmouth Guitarfish is a potential candidate for the ReShark program now that there a decent amount of Aquariums that house them so maybe in the future we'll bring in a Male somehow. If another fishery rescue were to happen with a rare shark species, I'd imagine we'd be able to take them in. Now that you mention it, I wanna ask someone who's been here for a long time on how many missed opportunities we've had with taking in potential Elasmo species since we didn't have any tropical tank big enough to house them.
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Oh I very much wonder that myself. Really the elasmo “rescue” concept feels rather under-discussed in aquaria - you don’t see a whole lot of openly rescued sharks and rays, save historically for Georgia’s four mantas and six whale sharks and a handful of others like Monterey’s great whites and SeaWorld San Diego’s lemon shark Citrus. I imagine plenty of sharks and rays do come from fisheries but it’s perhaps not reported as “rescuing” them. But regardless I too am curious about what may have been a consideration in the past, even in the Underwater Dome temperate system y’all have.
 
Drum Roll please... our Bowmouth Guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma) is officially on exhibit! Measuring at 6ft 2in, she is the largest animal on exhibit and it's very easy to spot her. She just went in this morning so she's still exploring, you'll see her roam the top half of tank so definitely go to the second floor viewing areas.
Her name is "Rhina" (pronounced "Rhy-nuh") based off the genus name.
She's definitely the rarest animal in terms of IUCN status, and one of the rarest in terms of how many are exhibited in the US (to my knowledge were only 1 of 2 aquariums on the West Coast to house the species now, the other being Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas) so she's a real treat to see.
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Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Drum Roll please... our Bowmouth Guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma) is officially on exhibit! Measuring at 6ft 2in, she is the largest animal on exhibit and it's very easy to spot her. She just went in this morning so she's still exploring, you'll see her roam the top half of tank so definitely go to the second floor viewing areas.
Her name is "Rhina" (pronounced "Rhy-nuh") based off the genus name.
She's definitely the rarest animal in terms of IUCN status, and one of the rarest in terms of how many are exhibited in the US (to my knowledge were only 1 of 2 aquariums on the West Coast to house the species now, the other being Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas) so she's a real treat to see.
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That is just awesome to see! I’m so happy for her to be able to live in such a beautiful new home and safe and sound. They are one of my favorite species, and I really hope that aquariums will be able to preserve them and eventually help restore the population.
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Drum Roll please... our Bowmouth Guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma) is officially on exhibit! Measuring at 6ft 2in, she is the largest animal on exhibit and it's very easy to spot her. She just went in this morning so she's still exploring, you'll see her roam the top half of tank so definitely go to the second floor viewing areas.
Her name is "Rhina" (pronounced "Rhy-nuh") based off the genus name.
She's definitely the rarest animal in terms of IUCN status, and one of the rarest in terms of how many are exhibited in the US (to my knowledge were only 1 of 2 aquariums on the West Coast to house the species now, the other being Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas) so she's a real treat to see.
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Amazing! I hope she'll be part of the almost nonexistent captive breeding program though...
 
It’s been really tough to get them to breed. Newport Aquarium as far as I know is the only one who’s actually managed to do it more than once (I think maybe Georgia also managed once), and I don’t believe the babies had a very high survival rate any of the attempts. It’s very difficult to manage breeding for a creature that’s so little understood, but hopefully development becomes more active now that we have more females in the US gene pool.
 
I forgot to mention yesterday but currently in the big quarantine pool in terms of new species are:
-Group of Dusky Batfishes (Platax pinnatus)
-School of Snubnosed Pompanos (Trachinotus blochii)
-Group of Blue Hippo Tangs (Paracanthurus hepatus)
The Batfish will be in 'The Reef', the Pompano most likely in the 'Archipelago's Inshore Reef', and the Blue Hippo Tangs as funny as it'd be to put them in the Clownfish Harem Tank so there'd be both "Nemo & Dory" in there, will most likely be the Archipelago or Reef.
There are also more Stripye's and Pyramid Butterflyfishes in the pool that will be added to the habitats where the species already live.
The Cushion Star was also moved to the Clownfish Harem Tank is which more fitting IMO since it fits that whimsical vibe

Word of mouth is that we're not certain on which Elasmobranch will be going in next, but it's leaning more towards the Black Tip Reef Sharks (which we only have 2 juveniles at the moment, not 3, I got that mixed up). Nice to see the last of the Sharks go in (besides the Female Zebra Shark but she won't go in for probably another year), especially some open water swimmers since our Zebra Shark right now rests a lot on the ground. This also reinforces my idea that we will probably be getting some of PDZA's Black Tips at least in the near future.

After that, it'll be Leopard Whipray then the Javanese Cownose Rays since to my knowledge, we don't have the cownose rays onsite just yet at the facility.
 
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Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Word of mouth is that we're not certain on which Elasmobranch will be going in next, but it's leaning more towards the Black Tip Reef Sharks (which we only have 2 juveniles at the moment, not 3, I got that mixed up). Nice to see the last of the Sharks go in (besides the Female Zebra Shark but she won't go in for probably another year), especially some open water swimmers since our Zebra Shark right now rests a lot on the ground. This also reinforces my idea that we will probably be getting some of PDZA's Black Tips at least in the near future.

After that, it'll be Leopard Whipray then the Javanese Cownose Rays since to my knowledge, we don't have the cownose rays onsite just yet at the facility.
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Fun question for you if you know already or could find out - where are you guys sourcing your Javanese cownose/flapnose rays from? A lot of aquariums substitute Atlantic cownose rays (R. bonasus) for the actual Pacific or Indo-Pacific cownose species (including my local facility, despite it literally being “of the Pacific”), because they’re so easy to source and breed very well in every aquarium they’re already in. Only Steinhart in SF actually has theirs labeled as flapnose and/or by the proper scientific name (R. javanica), of the US based aquariums or marine parks I’ve been to. So it made me very happy to hear that you guys were actually trying to get the genuine article.
 
Local_Shark said:
Fun question for you if you know already or could find out - where are you guys sourcing your Javanese cownose/flapnose rays from? A lot of aquariums substitute Atlantic cownose rays (R. bonasus) for the actual Pacific or Indo-Pacific cownose species (including my local facility, despite it literally being “of the Pacific”), because they’re so easy to source and breed very well in every aquarium they’re already in. Only Steinhart in SF actually has theirs labeled as flapnose and/or by the proper scientific name (R. javanica), of the US based aquariums or marine parks I’ve been to. So it made me very happy to hear that you guys were actually trying to get the genuine article.
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Don't quote me on this (I'll double check with our curator) but I'm pretty sure either Ocean Park Hong Kong or one of the major Japanese Aquariums. We got our Seahorses from Ocean Park so I wouldn't be surprised if we got the Rays from them too. Our President of Life sciences used to be the curator at Ocean Park and an Aquarium in Japan I can't remember the name of from where we got our Leopard Whipray & Napolean Wrasses from, so he's been able to make some calls and bring over the rarities which has been awesome.

I will definitely double check on that because I can't imagine Steinhart getting rid of there's, and the species is displayed at Ocean Park & some Japanese Aquariums so I will try and find the exact institution
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Don't quote me on this (I'll double check with our curator) but I'm pretty sure either Ocean Park Hong Kong or one of the major Japanese Aquariums. We got our Seahorses from Ocean Park so I wouldn't be surprised if we got the Rays from them too. Our President of Life sciences used to be the curator at Ocean Park and an Aquarium in Japan I can't remember the name of from where we got our Leopard Whipray & Napolean Wrasses from, so he's been able to make some calls and bring over the rarities which has been awesome.

I will definitely double check on that because I can't imagine Steinhart getting rid of there's, and the species is displayed at Ocean Park & some Japanese Aquariums so I will try and find the exact institution
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Yeah Steinhart only has a handful - and to be entirely honest with you, due to the basically identical appearance of all cownose species, I pretty much have to take them at their word that that’s what they’ve got. You can pretty much only tell the difference if you’re an expert and can see them up close (I’m not, and often can’t) or if you know where they’re sourced from, because if they’re caught in a certain region they basically have to be a certain species. It’s a little easier to take the Gran Acuario Mazatlán at their word that theirs are golden (aka Pacific) cownose rays (R. steindachneri) for example because they almost certainly sourced them directly out of the Gulf of California as they’re right next to it. That sourcing of most of their common local animals was confirmed by multiple members of their staff, who I tend to trust on the matter. Definitely if one of your directors has contacts in Japan, that would make perfect sense, because Javanese cownoses are as common in Japanese aquariums as Atlantics are in the good ol’ USA lol.
 
Another exciting day here as this morning, our 2 Blue Spotted Mask / Khul's Mask Rays went on exhibit! There is currently a rope around the Mangrove Lagoon while they settle in but you can still get a good view of them. These two are sisters that were born at the 'Aquarium at the Boardwalk' in Missouri. They don't have official names yet, but both have different personalities as one is more outgoing (the one i photographed) and the other is more introverted (she was hiding in the sand).

Other news is a pair of Coral Banded Shrimp were added to the Leaf Scorpionfish tank in 'At home in the Ocean'.
And as of right now, the Seadragons aren't planned to go on exhibit for another couple months since that tank is actually the growout tank for the Epaulette Shark before he moves over to the Mangrove Lagoon (makes sense since he is quite small), so don't expect the Seadragons for a while.

Pretty exciting time here since lot's of animals are now moving around into their exhibits. More updates to come for sure.
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Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Another exciting day here as this morning, our 2 Blue Spotted Mask / Khul's Mask Rays went on exhibit! There is currently a rope around the Mangrove Lagoon while they settle in but you can still get a good view of them. These two are sisters that were born at the 'Aquarium at the Boardwalk' in Missouri. They don't have official names yet, but both have different personalities as one is more outgoing (the one i photographed) and the other is more introverted (she was hiding in the sand).

Other news is a pair of Coral Banded Shrimp were added to the Leaf Scorpionfish tank in 'At home in the Ocean'.
And as of right now, the Seadragons aren't planned to go on exhibit for another couple months since that tank is actually the growout tank for the Epaulette Shark before he moves over to the Mangrove Lagoon (makes sense since he is quite small), so don't expect the Seadragons for a while.
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Precious babies!! Those rays are one of my very favorite species. Do you have any photos of the epaulette shark? I’m very curious as to which of the many species of that variety he is.
 
Local_Shark said:
Precious babies!! Those rays are one of my very favorite species. Do you have any photos of the epaulette shark? I’m very curious as to which of the many species of that variety he is.
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Not on me at the moment but it should be Hemiscyllium ocellatum, so just your standard Epaulette Shark.
Interestingly, like two years ago in the drafts, there were plans on possibly getting either Bali Catsharks (Atelomycterus baliensis) or Speckled Carpet Sharks (Hemiscyllium trispeculare) but it didn't work out unfortunately. I know the Bali Catsharks are pretty hard to find in general, and the Speckled Carpet Sharks used to be available captive bred in the aquarium trade via ORA but they stopped breeding them a while ago. So we just opted for the regular and common H. ocellatum since they're much easier to find captive bred than the other 2.
Maybe in the future another opportunity will come up to add those species to the collection
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
Not on me at the moment but it should be Hemiscyllium ocellatum, so just your standard Epaulette Shark.
Interestingly, like two years ago in the drafts, there were plans on possibly getting either Bali Catsharks (Atelomycterus baliensis) or Speckled Carpet Sharks (Hemiscyllium trispeculare) but it didn't work out unfortunately. I know the Bali Catsharks are pretty hard to find in general, and the Speckled Carpet Sharks used to be available captive bred in the aquarium trade via ORA but they stopped breeding them a while ago. So we just opted for the regular and common H. ocellatum since they're much easier to find captive bred than the other 2.
Maybe in the future another opportunity will come up to add those species to the collection
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Oh wow, that’s very interesting! I know SeaWorld San Diego may have some of the speckled catsharks mixed into their touchpool out front. And a lot of aquaria nowadays are getting in Papuan epaulette sharks (H. hallstromi) so I figured I’d ask about yours. Regular epaulettes are the biggest and I enjoy them but it’s interesting to see the other species make their way into American aquaria.
 
A couple new species of fish were introduced to the 'Inshore Reef' side of the Archipelago the other day, these include:
Flame Angelfishes (Centropyge loriculus)
Bicolor Angelfishes (Centropyge bicolor)
Double Lined Fusiliers (Pterocaesio digramma)
Lyretail Anthias (Males and Females) (Pseudanthias squamipinnis)
Blue-Green Chromis' (Chromis viridis) (These are in the Mangrove Lagoon side though)
(Plus more Foxfaces and Gold Rim Tangs)

I should get some photos tomorrow or somwtime next week
 
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