April 30, 2011 – City aquariums are pretty much all the same: Awesome. And the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA, is certainly that. Of course, it has its downsides. It’s expensive, crowded, and the exhibits can be breezed through rather quickly. The upside, though, is that, again, it’s awesome.
The central feature of the aquarium is its four-story, 200,000-gallon ocean tank that features an impressive range of cohabiting species that include sea turtles, rays, sand tiger sharks, and—my favorite—moray eels. A ramp walkway wraps around the tank to allow viewing at various levels and ends at the top of the tank where you can see the turtles come up for air or watch a fin cut through the water surface.
At the base of the tank is the African and rockhopper penguins habitat (you should always start with a nice penguin base), and lining the outer walls of the ramp are a variety of individual tanks holding everything from leafy sea dragons to a giant Pacific octopus.
Other things to see at the aquarium are the jellyfish room, a small reptile and amphibian section, the new shark and ray touch tank, and, of course, the ever-popular seal habitat , which is located in front of the aquarium building and is free.
I actually wrote previously about my behind-the-scenes interaction with those seals, as well as other wildlife at the aquarium, but I didn’t include any images of the public experience, so here’s a set of pictures from a recent visit. Easter-recent, actually. We took the whole Christ fish thing literally, I guess.
