Well I'm doing a bit of traveling again this summer so decided why not get the thread up again!
This year my travels are to Philadelphia and once again down to Florida (though a different bit).
So late last night I went up to our place in White Plains, New York, in order to get down to Philly faster today. We woke up early this morning and took the train into the city to catch our bus (Megabus is the company) since taking a bus is much cheaper than driving. We ate a diner where I got a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich for $8 (this is relevant later on). So we got on our bus at 8:40am and we expected to get to Philly at around 11:25am. In reality we arrived at 10:45am, which gave us a little bit more time than expected. So then we walked down to our hotel and rested for about an hour.
After we were rested, it was time to head down to the Adventure Aquarium! The aquarium (which is run by the same organization as the Newport Aquarium, which happens to be the aquarium I visited last summer in Cincinnati) is located in Camden, New Jersey, which is just over the Delaware River from Philly. I just don't know what's with me and visiting cities to go to a zoo and then visiting an aquarium run by the same people that just so happened to be technically in another state right across the river from the city I'm visiting and the zoo.... On our way over to the aquarium, we soon discovered that Philadelphia is a vastly cheaper city than New York. We only had to pay $2.50 for the bus to take us down to the river's edge, where we took a ferry across the river at $7 for a round trip ticket. Now notice how a round trip ferry ticket across a river in Philly is cheaper than a breakfast sandwich in New York!
The ferry dropped us off right next to the aquarium and we were set to go!
I quite enjoyed the aquarium. When I was going through I was thinking about how it reminded me of Newport a lot (this being before I knew they were run by the same people). The only major complaints being that the glass was very reflective and that it was very crowded (which the aquarium would want of course but there were a lot of people blocking hall ways and enclosures and a lot of kids just pushing people out of their way....). The signage at the aquarium I thought was pretty good, though not as ideal as I'd have liked. Definitely better than other aquariums I've been to like the New York Aquarium, though. Contrary to the generally bad Crocodylian enclosures at Newport, Adventure's were quite nice. This aquarium only had two species on display- Orinoco Crocodile and Cuvier's Dwarf Crocodile- but both enclosures seems to have adequate land space and the pools were definitely deep enough for them to dive down and large enough to allow for some swimming.
As several people have pointed out, the African Penguin enclosure is pretty old fashioned and is in need of a serious upgrade, and I agree. The pool is good but the land seems to be concrete and is quite small. It wasn't too bad, but wasn't very good. Still, it was better than Cincinnati's.
Near the penguin enclosure, is a small display area where, every once in a while, a keeper comes out with an education species. The species vary but I believe they have everything from North African Hedgehog to West African Dwarf Crocodile. I got Southern Three-Banded Armadillo, of course
Now many of you have probably heard about the new psychedelic Common Disco-Potamus enclosure the aquarium has now (if you haven't:
http://www.zoochat.com/22/lsd-hippos-dont-mix-them-355728/). Well, I don't like it. First of all, the enclosure is pretty dark. Now I don't mean like in a nocturnal exhibit setting, I mean just dark in general. Makes for very crappy photographs. The trees that once held various African bird species and large nests now hold these weirdo oval disks that have mini light shows on them. The back wall of the enclosure also has a light display that's just a bunch of random and very cartoony looking African animals walking across an African savanna. Personally, I would've preferred to see the birds flying around and now even the porcupines are gone. Now apart from that, it's not that bad of a hippo enclosure. Yes, it's all indoors, but it's of a decent size and I quite like the pool as it's reasonably deep and has a nice underwater view and is filled with several fish species (of course unlabeled). It'd be nice if the hippos could have a little bit of natural sunlight and some softer, more natural substrate to walk on but it is what it is. I quite enjoyed watching the two female hippos bound around underwater and interact. At one point the older female hit the younger one which resulted in the younger one jumping into the glass, kicking off of it, and doing an underwater flip over the older one!
It appears the pair are also given truck tires to play with, and play with it they did.
Now one of the main highlights of this aquarium, along with the main reason I decided to visit, were the sharks (also the main highlight of Newport). As with Newport, Adventure has a couple of very large and very nice shark tanks filled with some very nice species. The first tank, called Ocean Realm, is home to Zebra Sharks, Silky Sharks, Blacknose Sharks, Blacktip Sharks, Bonnethead Sharks, and, the main highlight of the tank in my opinion, Great Hammerhead Sharks (apparently the only two in the United States). The tank is also home to many other interesting fish species such as Southern Stingray, Roughtail Stingray, Cownose Ray, Bluestripe Runner (Caranx crysos), Sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), unspecified barracuda, and, best of all, several Mahi-Mahi! There were also Loggerhead and Green Sea Turtles in the tank. Now the other main shark exhibit is Shark Realm, which is a large tank with an underwater tunnel. Personally I preferred Newport's tunnel over Adventure's, since it has a glass floor at some parts so you can literally see 360 degrees around you and, for some reason, Adventure's made my head hurt when I looked at certain angles.... This tank is home to Sand Tiger Sharks, Sandbar Sharks, and Nurse Sharks as well was Southern Stingrays, Cownose Rays, Atlantic Menhaden, Yellowtail Snapper, and, best of all, one or two young Atlantic Goliath Groupers! The aquarium also has a nice little shark touch tank with Brown-Banded Bamboo Sharks, Epaulette Sharks, White-Spotted Bamboo Sharks, and Zebra Bullhead Sharks.
Overall I'd say it's a nice aquarium that takes a few hours to do. It takes a moment to figure out where the exhibits start but after that there are a lot of species and a lot of nice exhibits and enclosures. It could do with a few improvements but nothing too major.
After the aquarium, we had to wait for the ferry to come back and bring us to Philly again. Once back, we walked into the city for a while and found our way to the Liberty Bell. After that, we discovered that the subway system costs the same as the bus and gets us around three times as fast!
After we returned to the hotel (which was about 6pm), we just sat back and relaxed, which we continue to do now. Tomorrow should be another exciting and fun day as we head to the Philadelphia Zoo!
~Thylo
especially as you have now seen two subspecies of Manatee, where there is only the one in European collections.
I'm not sure when my next opportunity will be to see this special species but it is what it is. I'm just going to try to get photos of those unidentified turtles and that tern now before we leave later today.
And they seem to breed them yearly with two young calves currently at the facility. One thing I liked about the program is that, if the dolphins didn't want to "work" (they call it working) a show, they didn't have to. And it happened. Apparently the day before we went, the shows were all backed up because most of the dolphins didn't want to "work" some shows and simply swam into the back areas.