The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium is a very good Aquarium, amongst the best I've been to (although I haven't been to any of the really big jobs in Europe, the USA or Japan). It does have some bad points, and a couple of very bad points, but overall it is well worth visiting. It is very easy to get to, just a few minutes walk from the Lujiazui metro (subway) station and is also on numerous bus routes. The area it is in is a famous shopping/sightseeing spot. The entry fee is 160 Yuan so not cheap, but Aquariums are almost always expensive simply because they are expensive to operate. There are three floors to the Aquarium (the middle one being the ground floor as you enter). The first thing you see is the gift shop which is also the exit. You head to your right to the ticket-check and then up a long escalator to the start. The route through the Aquarium is one-way only which I hate because it means you can't back-track – especially when there are several floors accessed via one-way escalators! The escalator system, interestingly, is an up-and-down one so I'm not sure if the one-way route is a recent change or if it is maybe a temporary one. There is quite a lot to this Aquarium so I'll go through all the sections in order. The first floor you arrive at has multiple exhibition areas but there is a good looping route suggested on the map which means you don't miss anything. Straight ahead from the escalator is the “China Zone”, to your left and behind (easy to miss if you don't look at the map) is a “Special Exhibition” area and to your right (equally easy to miss) is the “SOS Save Our Sharks Exhibition”. The latter two exhibition areas each have one entry/exit point so no confusion. The suggested route is to go left through the “Special Exhibition” area, into the “China Zone” and then through the “SOS” exhibition before heading to the “South America Zone”. The “Special Exhibition” area starts off with a very interesting “Yangtze River Rare Aquatic Animals Exhibition”. There is lots of information here about the river itself and the threats to it, as well as some information on the now-extinct Yangtze river dolphin. The tanks in here are nice and clean but unfortunately many of them are a bit small. There was a Reeves' turtle in a terribly small tank where the only land area was a bit of wood; very poor indeed. I'll list the fish species here because it is note-worthy how many of them are common aquarium fish! I am just using the names given on the tank signage. Chinese loach Botia superciliaris Elongated loach Leptobotia elongata Dongting dace Sinilabeo decorus tungting Small minnow Sarcocheilichthys parvus Chinese fat minnow Sarcocheilichthys sinensis Chinese bitterling Rhodeus sinensis Pale ahub Zacco platypus Chinese sucker Myxocyprinus asiaticus Top-mouth culter Culter alburnus (three large fish in a reasonable large tank; nice fish) Paradise fish Macropodus opercularis Round-tailed paradise fish Macropodus chinensis Mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi (not the tropical marine mandarin fish!) Small snakehead Channa asiatica Marbled eel Anguilla marmorata (one quite large eel in a too small tank) The main part of the Special Exhibition is dedicated to “The Martial Arts Championship Of Aquatic Animals – The Bionic Exhibition Of Aquatic Animals Survival Skills”, which despite the Merlin-style name and introductory models of fish in Samurai suits (which confused me until I saw the sign) is actually very good and not at all Merlin-y. The exhibition is all about venomous and poisonous aquatic life and has a lot of the species which may be expected such as lionfish, rabbitfish, freshwater stingrays, long-spined sea urchins, etc, but also has marine catfish, upside-down jellyfish, a giant mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) and, most excitingly of all for me, cone shells!! Living ones! I've never seen live cone shells before and they are the most fascinating little critters. Out the front of the shell pokes two long long feelers and two long eye-stalks so it sort of looks like there are hermit crabs inside, but there is also a wiggly Mr. Snuffleupagus-type proboscis hoovering across the substrate (they had just been fed on what looked like bits of squid), and when they moved they didn't glide like other snails, they sort of just lurched forward as if they had started to glide but then tripped over something. Very cool animals! There's a weird sort of dojo thing here as well with an unconnected group of tanks, one with ribbon morays in their various colours, one with clownfish, one with swamp eels (Monopterus albus), one with a panther grouper, and one freshwater tropical tank for discus and angelfish. When I came out of the “Special Exhibition” area into the “China Zone” I looked at my watch and was surprised that I had just spent an entire hour in there! Probably mostly watching the cone shells to be honest! The “China Zone” consists of five tanks and some fossils which don't seem to have anything to do with anything else. Four of the tanks are quite large, and then there's a small one for gobies and mudskippers which has an absolutely enormous informational sign behind it. The other tanks in order display “Endangered Chinese Fish” (Yangtze and Chinese sturgeons, and adult Myxocyprinus asiaticus which look nothing like the young ones!); Chinese alligators with some large fish (like snakeheads) and weirdly a pair of domestic ducks which were very popular with the families; giant salamanders, and various species of Chinese carp. The “SOS Save Our Sharks” exhibit is mostly informational – in fact a definite case of Information Overload! One entire wall was literally covered in signage and photos about sharks, shark-finning, endangered sharks, etc etc (all in both Chinese and English). I really can't imagine many visitors reading any of it which is a shame. Live exhibits here were a touch tank for brown-banded bamboo sharks (I liked very much the fact that it was supervised and that the tank had “rest periods” – such as when I was in there – where the sharks were left be), several small tanks for baby bamboo and cat sharks, and a display of back-lit white-spotted bamboo shark egg cases labelled with how many days old they were into their incubation. From here you head back into the “China Zone” and down a ramp – past a display of small fossils – into the “South America Zone”. This was done up like an overgrown temple, very similar to the Sea Life's Seahorse Temple but making much more sense! I wasn't in here long because while it was well done most of the species were far too familiar to me, mostly common home-aquarium fare. Star here for me though was a whale candiru (Cetopsis coecutiens), a fish I didn't expect to see. Other interesting species which sort of fell between common and less-common were four-eyed fish, black ghost and green knifefish, and freshwater barracuda (Ctenolucius hujeta). The temple area was exited through a walk-through tunnel for larger South American fish, mostly the usual (arapaima, arowana, flagtail Prochilodus, red-tailed and tiger shovelnose catfish, and pacu) but there was also an unlabelled fish which is sort of like a paraya but without the fangs: I have seen pictures of it before but I simply cannot remember its name so I can't look it up. The tank was actually too small really for the fish in there, but I think tat is a common fault in South American giant tanks. Outside the tunnel were two more tanks, for electric eels and a South American lungfish. The electric eels were huge, a couple of them over six foot long; and the tank, while it could have been larger, was bigger than any of the other electric eel tanks I've seen elsewhere. The “Australia Zone” was a surprise. The first display here was the last part of the exhibits on this floor – it was a large tank seen from the surface and then you ride an escalator down through the middle of the tank to the rest of the “Australia Zone” on the floor below (the ground level of the building). The main thing that surprised me here was a large saltwater crocodile resting on logs just below the surface next to the glass walls of the escalator with snakeneck turtles sleeping around its head, and a black swan cruising around on the water's surface. It took me a minute to see that the crocodile was in fact a very good model – it was the eyes and the flat-bottomed feet that gave it away when you looked more closely. The tank itself was filled with silver scats, monos and barramundi, as well as the snakenecks and pig-nosed turtles. A lot of the fish were not very healthy-looking unfortunately. On the lower floor were four Australian tanks (although the one for rainbowfish was covered up for renovation). Of the other three, one had some larger fish like barramundi; one had a large freshwater sawfish in a far too small tank, circling forlornly back and forth; and the last was a nice mangrove tank for brackish fish. The “Africa Zone” consisted of just two tanks, both for cichlids (one had labels for African arowana, aba-aba and others but they weren't apparent). The “Southeast Asia Zone” opened with a nice “Mekong River tank” (although the species were common home-aquarium fare like gouramis and barbs) and then had a lot of small tanks for more tropical fish which are common in pet shops. Hairy puffers (Tetraodon baileyi) were the most unusual here, and are nice fish to see. A large tank for Pangasius etc had a couple of albino knifefish in it which I think are the first I've seen. The only really bad exhibit in the Aquarium was next, an odd tunnel sort of tank but viewable only through one wall, in which four spotted seals swam back and forth. It was just a short narrow tank, barely any room for the seals, and I imagine it used to be for small sharks or something. Bizarrely, this was the only viewing for the seals! I thought I was about to come to an above-water area but no, it was straight on up the “Polar Zone” corridor past some plastic penguin models to the real penguins (a mix of Humboldt's and Magellanic penguins in an enclosure which wasn't too bad – I've seen much worse). I got the impression the seals didn't really have a proper above-water area at all, and that they had just been stuck in a random tank when obtained. Things got better straight after the penguins with an area called “Sea To Shore”. Along with the “Special Exhibition” area at the start, this was the best part of the Aquarium. Lots of variety, big tanks. Stand-outs were Japanese spider crabs (I know they're common, but still neat animals), weedy sea dragons, horseshoe crabs, wolf-eels, long-spined snipefish (Macrorhamphosus scolopax), garden eels, and lanternfish. Then there was a nice jellyfish display area, and another escalator down to the third floor (the basement level of the building) which is where the ubiquitous underwater-tunnel-through-shark-tank is. The sign at the top of the escalator says the one here is the “world's longest underwater tunnel at 155m” but it runs through five distinct tanks, each quite obviously separate from the next (the walls sort of gave it away!). The last section of the tunnel is through a “coral reef” which in my opinion was much more interesting than the preceding shark and “big fish” sections. Then there's another escalator up to the gift shop exit. So, in summary, good Aquarium, lots of displays, clean tanks, lots of variety, some very nice species and not just standard Public Aquarium type animals. Downsides: more than a few sickly fish, often the tanks were small, the spotted seals absolutely should not be there at all.
Thanks for the review; overall clearly belongs in the better half of Chinese aquaria. Yes, adult Myxocyprinus really do look remarkably different than the young. I assume all the adults were in the boring non-breeding dress vs. the stunning red-striped breeding male? Nice that they keep cone snails; the only aquaria where I remember seeing these interesting creatures are in Japan. You don't happen to have a photo of the "mystery" that looked like a fang-less paraya? Also nice to hear that they had anti-shark finning info, but perhaps not entirely surprising now that even the government has gone against it. We're not there yet, but a partial victory still suggests a somewhat brighter future for sharks.
This is one of the all-time great exhibit titles: “The Martial Arts Championship Of Aquatic Animals – The Bionic Exhibition Of Aquatic Animals Survival Skills” Did spotted seals do something to offend the Chinese aquarium industry? From your description it sounds like they get hosed in every aquarium that you've seen them in with terrible exhibits.
I'm glad you like SOA! I think it's THE best animal-exhibit facility in china mainland. The seals are always there since the place opened, and as I recall they proudly claimed that it was a one-of-a-kind seal exhibit in their earlier brochure. But indeed, apart from the seal and penguin part, it is a great aquarium-nice exhibits, quite informative, and with some interesting species (but i dislike the fake croc). They used to have more exciting species: mola mola (died before its debut), dart poison frogs (yes, they're very rare in Chinese zoos), and a cute albino chinese soft shell turtle. Great review, by the way. Are you still in shanghai? If you plan to visit more aquariums, you may want to know there is another one in Changfeng Park, Daduhe Rd..I would really enjoy another review.
no I visited SOA on my last day before my flight out, so now I am in Malaysia. I didn't know about the other Aquarium unfortunately, because otherwise I could have fitted that in on the previous day!
er, sort of. I just had my point-and-shoot camera and it couldn't figure out what I wanted it to focus on! I haven't checked to see what actually came out properly -- for the cone shells I fear none of them. The photo of the tank itself will be an alright photo though. I'll try and get the photos up today or tomorrow maybe. From my one visit (hardly conclusive! ) they seemed to be a species that would be easy to keep. There were maybe ten in the tank, they were all active and alert, all feeding well.
it is a pretty cool name! For the seals, I have seen them in terrible terrible conditions at the two latest Shanghai places I visited (this Aquarium and the Insect Kingdom), in poor conditions at the Chengdu Zoo (very small pool), and in a huge pool at Shanghai Zoo (labelled as a harbour seal but I think it must have been a spotted seal after all). I can't recall seals at Beijing Zoo off the top of my head.....
ooh those male Myxocyprinus are nice!! I just had a look on Google Images as well -- is the side stripe only in a breeding state? The ones here had the stripe but not the red colour. I didn't get a photo of the "paraya-like fish". I just had my little camera which literally cannot focus through a curved tunnel wall (it only has the auto-focus function), and because I knew I'd seen the fish before in photos I thought I would be able to google it easily enough. Unfortunately I had the name "dorado" in my head and that isn't it of course. There was only one individual.
Japanese martial arts training studio. It is only little so is more like a temple than a dojo, but given the theme of the exhibition I think it is supposed to represent a dojo.
that's a shame, but you didn't miss much, that one isn's so good as SOA anyway. looking forward to your review and photos of Zoo Negara!
I've just started uploading photos, so I started with the cone shells. http://www.zoochat.com/636/tank-cone-shells-348399/ http://www.zoochat.com/636/cone-shells-348398/ http://www.zoochat.com/636/cone-shells-348397/
here is a photo of the adults at the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium: http://www.zoochat.com/636/tank-endangered-chinese-fish-348425/ The stripe is sort of reddish-brown but no real red at all.
Nice photos. The Myxocyprinus at Shanghai Ocean Aquarium are young adults. Yes, the bright red stripe is only in breeding season males. Interesting that the cone snails were kept in a group. The very few I've seen in Japanese aquaria were exhibited alone (both mollusc and fish eating species). Wouldn't hazard a guess on the exact species on your photo due to the extensive algae covering of the shell (which is fairly normal in the wild, too), but it isn't Gastridium geographus; a species with a uniquely elongate and bulbous shell.
it turns out it was a payara after all! See here for how I found out (thanks to devilfish!): http://www.zoochat.com/295/fish-market-chatuchak-weekend-market-jan-352459/
That's because they aren't cone snails from the pic Chlidonias posted, they are clearly strombus, a harmless species common in the aquarium trade. The elongated eyestalks really give it away. I'm guessing they didn't want the risk of keeping such a dangerous species, so they went with a similar-looking but harmless species. Most aquarium visitors wouldn't even know the difference anyway!
