Tennessee Aquarium, the largest freshwater aquarium in the world.

[hencpu]

While we're on the topic on large aquariums such as Georgia or Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium many of them are typically saltwater tanks.

Dont get me wrong, seeing whaleshark up close is a sight to behold, but is freshwater life less interesting than marine life?

Anyway, Tennessee Aquarium River Journey has the largest freshwater exhibits in the world. Anyone been there before?



the freshwater part starts from 06:32, i think before that was brackish?

[Shi Xuan]

Hi,

Glad that you showed these videos, now I'm intrigued, so much that I want to see them for myself. Public marine aquarium has been captivating, perhaps if only the Great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias could be held in captivity, I think I would like to be the first visitor in the queue to see it.

On the other hand, I hope the upcoming River Safari scale can be as magnificent as the Tennessee Aquarium, though definitely not in size comparison. Besides, they have promised a new and diverse array of faunas never seen locally, with some monster fishes like the Mekong giant catfish.

In the second video, the opening features some juvenile lake sturgeon till 1.05 and from there till 1.41, those fishes are pupfishes, probably Cyprinodon variegatus because of the slight vertical barring on the flanks, I guess. Zoological Society of London, ZSL London zoo, is currently having an ongoing conservation of the pupfishes and even some livebearers. Look here;
http://www.zsl.org/conservation/regi...g,1762,AR.html

Anyway, looking at the Sturgeons really reminds of the National Geographic documentary on Dr Zeb Hogan's monster fish.

[hencpu]

Hi,

Glad that you showed these videos, now I'm intrigued, so much that I want to see them for myself. Public marine aquarium has been captivating, perhaps if only the Great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias could be held in captivity, I think I would like to be the first visitor in the queue to see it.

On the other hand, I hope the upcoming River Safari scale can be as magnificent as the Tennessee Aquarium, though definitely not in size comparison. Besides, they have promised a new and diverse array of faunas never seen locally, with some monster fishes like the Mekong giant catfish.

In the second video, the opening features some juvenile lake sturgeon till 1.05 and from there till 1.41, those fishes are pupfishes, probably Cyprinodon variegatus because of the slight vertical barring on the flanks, I guess. Zoological Society of London, ZSL London zoo, is currently having an ongoing conservation of the pupfishes and even some livebearers. Look here;
http://www.zsl.org/conservation/regi...g,1762,AR.html

Anyway, looking at the Sturgeons really reminds of the National Geographic documentary on Dr Zeb Hogan's monster fish.

Seeing a great white up close in those public aquarium would be quite scary, . Anyway, nice to hear local zoo's effort to showcase the various river wildlife!

Thanks for the wealth of info on the fish there.

[hencpu]

Anyway saw the list of species that's going to be in Singapore River Safari. In case anyone interested
http://www.zoochat.com/266/river-saf...tml#post505778

[Shi Xuan]

Thanks for the link. I can see there's some new and really odd species added to the themed public aquarium, just from the summarized list. The animals that really got me are the American paddlefish, Alligator snapping turtle, Giant salamander (no idea it's the Japanese or the Chinese one), Giant panda, Red panda, Mekong giant catfish and stingray, Sturgeon and the Red bellied piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri). No idea why they left out the Serrasalmus genus of piranha but it doesn't matter anyway because I haven't got to see one for myself.

Otherwise, it's not so much for the rest of the list, besides, some of the fishes can be found in our LFS and that's including Electric eel.

[cdckjn]

if I remember properly, the Giant Salamander is a species by itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_salamander

[Shi Xuan]

Chinese giant Salamander (Andrias davidianus) and Japanese giant Salamander (Andrias japonicus) are two distinct Asian species, if you read further on the wikipedia article. Their occurrence in China, Japan and United States is merely sympatric and does not account much to be described as a single species altogether, despite being so much identical.

In terms of size and conservation status, Chinese giant salamander is by far the largest and the more endangered one.

[Shi Xuan]

An additional information to my earlier post, which includes the Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), endermic to eastern region of United States, that is, attributed to the one found in North America. This is a comparatively small species but by no means, as spectacular. The traits of this species is more distinct nonetheless, which is easier to tell apart from the Andrias genus.

Some people consider Andrias sp. classification as synonym but until valid evidence suggests the Chinese and Japanese ones are identical, we should take them as separate species.

[Shi Xuan]

Their occurrence in China, Japan and United States is merely sympatric and does not account much to be described as a single species altogether, despite being so much identical.

Correction to my earlier statement, in actual fact, the Chinese and Japanese giant salamander never occur sympatrically, but I should say, they are allopatric, occupying different geographical niche and to explain myself more clearly without ambiguity, the Eastern Hellbender is the only giant salamander species found in United States.