Non-Aquarium Aquarium Animals

NNM.

NNM.

Well-Known Member
What are some animals you’ve seen at aquariums that seem like they’d more so suit a zoo or another type of facility? An animal that isn’t that aquatic or completely terrestrial.

My example would be meerkats at Maritime Aquarium. Their natural habitat is the opposite of the kind you’d see in an aquarium.
 
SeaQuest Las Vegas has various non-aquarium animals like crested porcupine, coati, wallaby, macaws, lizards, tortoises, etc.
 
I just remembered my girlfriend recently visited San Antonio Aquarium and showed me pictures. Apparently it has sloths, wallabies, macaws, lemurs, Bengal cat, and a kinkajou…
 
Jakarta Aquarium, being part of Taman Safari Indonesia, somewhat makes it obligatory to have land animals (It's full name is literally Jakarta Aquarium and Safari).

Notably they have serval, black-and-white ruffed lemur, Prevost's squirrel, barn owl, meerkat, binturong, tufted capuchin, and several reptiles, amphibians, and insects.
 
I was just at Jarkarta Aquarium (Indonesia) in August and as @Rizz Carlton has pointed out there's a whole bunch of non-aquatic species there. Here are 3 examples:

Meerkat exhibit:

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Prevost's Squirrel exhibit:

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Serval exhibit:

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I unfortunately don't have any decent pics of it, but Osaka Aquarium curiously keeps a Ring-tailed Coati in their Gulf of Panama exhibit, alongside various marine fishes. A rather strange exhibit indeed. I don't really know what kind of exhibit coatis require but it seems generally lackluster for the coati, being relatively small (most of the area is taken up by the large water area) and barren, consisting solely of mock rock and a few logs. The JAZA listings for Osaka Aquarium also record a holding of Common Squirrel Monkey (which was not present on either of my visits, in 2017 and 2019 respectively), which I assume would have been kept in the Ecuador Rainforest exhibit? That would explain the unused land area and mock vines in this exhibit.

At least in Australia, aquariums often keep a range of terrestrial species, mostly consisting of native reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
 
DaLilFishie said:
At least in Australia, aquariums often keep a range of terrestrial species, mostly consisting of native reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
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That actually reminds me of something I forgot to mention, the Australia exhibit at the National Aquarium. It's a good, well-crafted exhibit, and probably the most popular exhibit there, but it doesn't have that many aquatic species and isn't exactly the first climate you'd think of for an aquarium.
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You should check out the Sao Paolo Aquarium/ Aquário de São Paulo thread here. They got/had some impressive stuff.
 
Besides the dinky mall aquariums, here are a few major US aquariums I can think of off the top of my head.

1. Long Island Aquarium in New York held Japanese macaques for a long time. looking at their current map they appear to have been replaced with fishing cats. The aquarium also holds coatis and porcupines

2. Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Utah holds clouded leopard and binturong

3. Adventure Aquarium in New Jersey has hippos in an all-indoor exhibit. I guess having a semi-aquatic mammal makes sense but that's probably stretching it a bit.

4. Shark Reef in Las Vegas and the Virginia Aquarium both hold Komodo dragons

What do we think about the Dallas World Aquarium? Would that be more of a zoo or indoor rainforest than a proper aquarium?
 
Gulf World (an absolute disappointment sans their rough-toothed dolphins) in Panama City Beach keeps multiple bird species in tiny-all indoor cages and “parrot-on-stick-displays” within a walk-through atrium, such as African pied crows, all kinds of macaws, Amazon parrots, magpie-jays, and at one time the atrium even had free-roaming iguanas and chameleons.
 
MonkeyBat said:
Besides the dinky mall aquariums, here are a few major US aquariums I can think of off the top of my head.

2. Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Utah holds clouded leopard and binturong

3. Adventure Aquarium in New Jersey has hippos in an all-indoor exhibit. I guess having a semi-aquatic mammal makes sense but that's probably stretching it a bit.

4. Shark Reef in Las Vegas and the Virginia Aquarium both hold Komodo dragons
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I was going to bring all of these up if nobody had yet. They’re probably the best examples I’ve seen, and what’s especially nice is every one of those exhibits is well suited for their residents even if they’re all indoors (I haven’t actually seen Virginia’s Komodo habitat but I assume it’s at least as nice as the one at Shark Reef). I’d also add that Shark Reef has, I believe, two Johnston’s crocodiles (C. johnstoni), even if that is something you might expect a bit more at an aquarium.

AndyJ08 said:
Gulf World (an absolute disappointment sans their rough-toothed dolphins) in Panama City Beach keeps multiple bird species in tiny-all indoor cages and “parrot-on-stick-displays” within a walk-through atrium, such as African pied crows, all kinds of macaws, Amazon parrots, magpie-jays, and at one time the atrium even had free-roaming iguanas and chameleons.
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This facility is one of the few I’ve been to that I truly detest. It’s ancient and decrepit and not in a “preserving aquarium history” way, purely in a “ownership has no interest in spending money on legitimate animal welfare” way. One hopes that someday someone higher up will throw that business model to the wayside. The atrium at least was large and gave the birds plenty of room and enrichment it seemed. If any US resident or international visitor with interest wishes to see rough-toothed dolphins, I highly recommend not wasting your time at Gulf World and instead visiting the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
 
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Local_Shark said:
I was going to bring all of these up if nobody had yet. They’re probably the best examples I’ve seen, and what’s especially nice is every one of those exhibits is well suited for their residents even if they’re all indoors (I haven’t actually seen Virginia’s Komodo habitat but I assume it’s at least as nice as the one at Shark Reef). I’d also add that Shark Reef has, I believe, two Johnston’s crocodiles (C. johnstoni), even if that is something you might expect a bit more at an aquarium.



This facility is one of the few I’ve been to that I truly detest. It’s ancient and decrepit and not in a “preserving aquarium history” way, purely in a “ownership has no interest in spending money on legitimate animal welfare” way. One hopes that someday someone higher up will throw that business model to the wayside. The atrium at least was large and gave the birds plenty of room and enrichment it seemed. If any US resident or international visitor with interest wishes to see rough-toothed dolphins, I highly recommend not wasting your time at Gulf World and instead visiting the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
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The Clearwater Marine Aquarium is far, FAR superior to the 1960’s tourist-trap-era GulfWorld, as the Clearwater facility clearly cares about their inhabitants unlike GulfWorld. I remember seeing a sobering sight one of my earlier visits to GulfWorld; a single Lesser Flamingo in an all-indoor exhibit with a size comparable to a hot tub. Thankfully, the tank in question to longer houses flamingos, but in true, cost-cutting GulfWorld fashion, they were replaced with goldfish.
 
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