Join our zoo community

COEX Aquarium Visit August 2013

Discussion in 'South Korea' started by Chlidonias, 6 Aug 2013.

  1. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

    Joined:
    13 Jun 2007
    Posts:
    23,379
    Location:
    New Zealand
    I visited here with the sole reason of seeing African manatees. I was at the facility, situated inside the COEX Mall for probably three hours and boy was it packed! I've never been in any Aquarium so full before and with the narrow pathways it certainly wasn't designed with huge numbers of people in mind which is a bit odd given the number of people in Seoul.

    It is a good Aquarium but it has some really odd exhibits inside,like the tropical (i.e. heated) bannerfish tank inside the chilled swimming tank for the Humboldt's penguins, or the entire section devoted to weird aquariums (phone-boxes, traffic lights, refrigerators, etc, turned into fish tanks), or the prairie dog enclosure designed as a martial arts studio for some inexplicable reason.

    The entrance to the Aquarium is through an aquarium archway (i.e. a tank made up of two pillars and a top-tank), and the first section is a cluster of cylindrical tanks for tropical marines. At almost no point in the entire visit could I get a photo of a tank without people in front of it. There was basically a conveyor belt of visitors and it did no good to stand and wait for photo opportunities because they never came. The path led on through a section for nice tanks for Asian fish, I gather all local to Korea and surrounding countries (there was almost no English on any signs apart for the common name of the animal), through a goldfish pond area and into the “Fish's Wonderland” which was all the weird ones I mentioned earlier. In this area were also kept the prairie dogs, Prevost's squirrels and sugar gliders in similarly bizarrely-themed enclosures. And I thought Wellington Zoo's marmoset doll house was bad!

    From here you pass an average glass tank for Egyptian fruit bats and on into a walk-through Amazonia forest area with lots of tanks for big fish (the regular sort of things like electric eels, arapaima, arowana, red-tailed catfish, etc), not all from South America, as well as a small glass box for a lone squirrel monkey. A bit of a surprise was an enclosure for European beavers! I've never seen beavers before and the pair here were very active (they were also being fed which probably helped). Rather unusually they shared their enclosure with various tortoises and an arowana! Small-clawed otters and a saltwater crocodile also lived here (in two other encosures!) but I skimmed past them in the crowd and moved on to the marine part of the Aquarium.

    There are loads of marine tanks from really big ones for sharks and rays through to small ones. A surprise in here was southern pigfish (a NZ species). But it was the Marine Mammals part I was most interested in, because here of course were housed the African manatees. There was also another big tank here for harbour seals, which as far as I could tell could only be viewed from under the water-line. The three manatees were very very active (just been fed on lettuce) and it was cool watching them push themselves along the bottom of the tank with their front flippers, just like a human swimming along the bottom of a pool would do.

    So, in summary, a good Aquarium,well worth visiting but with some rather odd theming choices.

    You may be waiting a while before photographs are uploaded.....
     
    amur leopard likes this.
  2. snowleopard

    snowleopard Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

    Joined:
    1 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    7,570
    Location:
    Abbotsford, B.C., Canada
    An aquarium with squirrels, beavers, fruit bats and prairie dogs? A little bizarre, but I enjoyed your concise, interesting review. Thanks!
     
  3. Brum

    Brum Well-Known Member 10+ year member

    Joined:
    27 May 2011
    Posts:
    3,695
    Location:
    Birmingham, UK
    I don't think beavers are too out of place. I agree that the other three are a tad on the odd side though! :p
    Great review, concise and to the point. Shame the crowds were so extreme, at least you got to see the African manatees though. :D
     
  4. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

    Joined:
    13 Jun 2007
    Posts:
    23,379
    Location:
    New Zealand
    photos have been uploaded :)