USZOOfan42
Well-Known Member
Often animals like axolotls, dart frogs, reptiles, pac man frogs, and other herps are there.
cornu aspersum
Well-Known Member
Are axolotls not aquarium animals?
USZOOfan42
Well-Known Member
Depends how you define “aquarium animals” that could be aquatics, marine life+ fish or animals commonly found in aquariums.
cornu aspersum
Well-Known Member
Surely axolotls fit both descriptions? They are aquatic animals and they can only be kept in aquariums.
Herps are really commonly kept in aquariums, honestly I am not sure of an aquarium that doesn't keep some type of herp. Frogs, axolotls, and snakes are routinely kept.
Adventure Aquarium is the most blatant example of this that I have experienced, but that was already mentioned.
The Greensboro Science Center originally kept Fishing Cats in their aquarium. While this species does associate with water, I have never seen them in an aquarium before or since.
The Jenkinson's Aquarium has several New World Monkeys on their 2nd floor, but unlike other aquariums, they are not part of a mixed/hybrid land/water setup. They also have African Green and Egyptian Toads (toads are fairly uncommon in aquariums from my experience).
The National Aquarium is full of species not normally found in aquariums, between their Australia and Upland Tropical Forest exhibits, both of which feature terrestrial reptiles and free-roaming birds.
Speaking of which...
I counted at least 35 species of aquatic or semi-aquatic reptiles, fish, and crustaceans inhabiting that exhibit from my visit this year. Not sure if that would qualify as "not much". Besides, it's not all about numbers; it's one of the most unique collections in any aquarium out there.
The Greensboro Science Center originally kept Fishing Cats in their aquarium. While this species does associate with water, I have never seen them in an aquarium before or since.
The Jenkinson's Aquarium has several New World Monkeys on their 2nd floor, but unlike other aquariums, they are not part of a mixed/hybrid land/water setup. They also have African Green and Egyptian Toads (toads are fairly uncommon in aquariums from my experience).
The National Aquarium is full of species not normally found in aquariums, between their Australia and Upland Tropical Forest exhibits, both of which feature terrestrial reptiles and free-roaming birds.
Speaking of which...
I counted at least 35 species of aquatic or semi-aquatic reptiles, fish, and crustaceans inhabiting that exhibit from my visit this year. Not sure if that would qualify as "not much". Besides, it's not all about numbers; it's one of the most unique collections in any aquarium out there.
Local_Shark
Well-Known Member
Yeah I was a big fan of Baltimore’s Australian exhibit! Loved the lungfish and the snake necked turtles especially. I’d never seen anything quite like it in aquaria so it was a somewhat unexpected and very real treat. I also really appreciated how nicely they mixed aquatic and terrestrial creatures, in my estimation it was at least slightly more of an aquatic lean but that’s just me.
USZOOfan42
Well-Known Member
I don’t think it’s been mentioned here, maybe once but DWA is the definition of a zoo inside of an aquarium.
That’s a lot of water in the serval enclosure, do you know if it was originally designed for fishing cats or something?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:
Prevost's Squirrel exhibit:
Serval exhibit:
CMA is a good rescue organization, but until VERY recently the entire facility was pretty bad. The dolphin tanks were well under-sized for the animals and nothing else was really that good. Even now it leaves a LOT to be desired, although the dolphins are in nice tanks now. By and large they seem to be pretty comparable places, IMO. @SusScrofa can probably better compare them, however.
Toba Aquarium in Japan still keeps fishing cats and bred their animals a couple times in the last few years.
Back at Turkey there are a handful of shopping mall aquariums that later implemented terrestrial species. Examples include:
Aqua Vega (Ankara): serval, caracal, striped skunk, coatimundi, pheasants, ferrets, parrots
Emaar Aquarium and Underwater Zoo (Istanbul): grivet monkey, nutria, meerkat, sugar glider, naked mole-rat, raccoon
ViaAquarium (also at Istanbul): rhesus macaque,
parrots, and sulcata tortoise.
All three had at multiple species of terrestrial reptiles or semi aquatic species in predominantly terrestrial enclosures.
@Rizz Carlton might know more, but when I was there the Serval was in the back and the tank contained fish species such as Midas Cichlid, Spotted Tilapia and Denison Barb.
Rizz Carlton
Well-Known Member
Suprisingly enough, the exhibit was originally intended to house Komodo dragons when the aquarium first opened back in 2017. No clue why the plan scrapped (Maintenance and logistic definitely are issues, considering the aquarium located within a busy mall).
The exhibit opened around a year into the aquarium's opening and briefly displayed a pair of red tegus. It was then housed an very large Asian water monitor (Another individual used for photo and interaction) as somewhat as a replacement for the Komodo dragons. The exhibit does fit perfectly for the monitor lizard, as it was big enough and of course have access to water where guests are able to view the lizard swim.
It need to be put into context that Jakarta Aquarium is part of Taman Safari Indonesia, of course they have to put more stuffs to further cement that branding into this aquarium. This resulted in the aquarium to brough in animals from the main safari park (Especially Cisarua), which is how we got the serval. Another result of this are the black-and-white ruffed lemur, which were displayed in an exhibit originally for coconut crabs and mudskippers in a mangrove beach-themed display.
No idea why they still insist on maintaining the water on the serval exhibit, something about the "similar to their natural habitat" bull if you ask them. Serval have somewhat been a "mandarory" species for the main Taman Safari Indonesia facilities. The monitor lizards was then moved to the park in Cisarua in exchange for the serval and others, where one individual is displayed in the Reptile Tunnel ever since.
Local_Shark
Well-Known Member
Having been to both, I wouldn't even put the current version of CMA in the same ballpark as Gulf World. CMA's team at least are working on making sure every animal tank is better sized for its occupants, and now the dolphins, rays, and some of the other residents all have brand-new or recently upgraded tanks. They now have a master plan to renovate the entire facility and provide all the other animal groups with such upgrades, as of February of this year. It even includes adding a space for manatee rehab, always a nice touch in FL facilities. The original facilities were also opened to the public in 1981, in contrast to Gulf World who opened in 1970 (with, frankly, dated facilities even at the time). GW's ownership has changed hands a multitude of times, and each iteration seems to have had little or no intention of renovating basically anything unless they absolutely have to (i.e. they run out of space or something physically breaks down). The majority of the facility is decrepit and still those '60s/'70s-era tank designs and systems, though there have been a handful of renovations that I'm aware of to at least keep things functional, and some large-scale ones at that. If they were making the same type of general good-faith effort to be a top-notch facility that CMA is, I wouldn't have the same criticisms. It certainly also seems like CMA started the process of heavily enhancing their facility the second they began to accumulate more financial capital (namely, from the fame and worldwide notoriety of Winter and the films that were made about her), showing that good faith and care for animal welfare.
Apologies though, I digress. This isn't really meant to be a takedown thread...but I felt the need to mention how I feel about the effort of that particular facility since it got brought up.
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Largely I agree about the current CMA, but disagree about the pre-renovation. But you are right, this isn't the thread for that conversation
