A display opened in December 2015, featuring displays of prehistoric species and live animals suck as king crabs and tuatara. Meet the dinosaurs living and extinct at Kelly Tarlton’s | Scoop News Prehistoric creatures are coming to Kelly Tarlton’s SEA LIFE Aquarium in Auckland. An incredible renovation has been undertaken, converting one wing of New Zealand’s favourite aquarium to house creatures from our Jurassic past. Visitors will be able to immerse themselves in this unique and atmospheric experience when the exhibit opens to the public this Saturday, December 5. State-of-the-art digital displays will provide the chance to get up close and personal with prehistoric sea creatures. This New Zealand-first installation will give visitors the opportunity to interact with the monolithic Plesiosaurus, massive Liopluradon and mighty Megalodon. In addition to featuring a range of interactive activities with virtual aquatic dinosaurs, the exhibit will feature real-life Jurassic-era creatures including ancient king crabs and carpet sharks in tanks ensconced in massive dino bones, along with a variety of themed activities. Kelly Tarlton’s SEA LIFE Aquarium General Manager, Phil McGowan says, “We’re really excited about this exhibit. It’s the first of its kind in New Zealand and it will give visitors a window into what our oceans were like hundreds of millions of years ago. “There is a huge range of things to see, interact with and learn. I think visitors will absolutely love this unique experience.”
Toothy monsters of the Jurassic sea You wouldn't have wanted to go swimming off the New Zealand coast in Jurassic times, if the new exhibit at Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium is anything to go by. New Zealand has a relatively poor fossil record for land-based dinosaurs, but archaeologists have discovered the seas around the shores of the emerging land mass were full of things with spikes, teeth and bad attitudes. These creatures - and some of the more benign ones - have been brought to life at Kelly Tarlton's as computer animations and live-animal displays of descendants of the creatures that swam in our seas millions of years ago. The children and I are shown the display by the aquarium's education officer, Bonnie Hartfield. She says the animals represent species that would have lived on or around the land mass which became New Zealand during the Jurassic Period, and have survived through millions of years virtually unchanged. Green bell frogs, koura and spiny sea urchins are familiar. The kids crawl through a tunnel that pops them up in a tank of carpet sharks. These peaceful creatures - they apparently bark when annoyed - are sharing their space with some prehistoric-looking sea tulips, which Bonnie tells us are not a plant but a type of sea squirt. Three-year-old Natalie is interested in the live green bell frogs and tadpoles while 5-year-old Florian is drawn to the exhibit's large screens. Impressive animations bring back to life several bitey creatures, now - thankfully - extinct. There's the megalodon, a mighty prehistoric shark that makes Jaws look like a pussycat, and two marine reptiles - a Loch Ness monster-type plesiosaur and a liopleurodon, a more stocky relative with an impressive mouthful of fangs. Detailed 3D animations allow visitors to "get inside" the animals, peeling back skin to see the muscles and skeletons beneath. There are a few photos on the link too.
