My family and I visited this aquarium in Galway just before New Year’s Eve of 2017. The aquarium’s collection consists predominantly of species that can be found off the coasts of Ireland, as well as species from all around the world.
The aquarium is a two-storey building, with each floor having a different assortment of exhibits. On the ground floor, there is a submarine display, where visitors can view fish underwater as if they were in a submarine. The centrepiece of this floor is the ray pool, a large, open-topped tank home to thornback rays, lesser spotted dogfish, and turbot (a type of flatfish). There is also a kelp zone, harbour zone, octopus tank, a tank for clownfish and seahorses, and the largest in the aquarium, the ocean tank (home to bass, bream, wreckfish, and smoothhound). However, the exhibit that interested me most was the conger eels. This is the largest of the eel species, and I was amazed by the size of these fish – they were almost like real sea serpents!
On the top floor are three ‘coastal zones’, a freshwater zone (featuring rudd and perch as well as a waterfall), a jellyfish exhibit, a tropical zone (featuring stingrays and piranhas), a ‘log boat’ exhibit, and an AV room. I remember seeing an albino tongueless frog of the genus Xenopus in a small tank in the tropical zone (see photo in slider above). The skeleton of a fin whale – the second largest animal on Earth after the blue whale – hangs on the ceiling overlooking this floor.
The aquarium is the only one of four in Ireland (the other three being Bray SeaLife, Dingle OceanWorld and Exploris in Portaferry) to be a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), and has been involved with a number of conservation projects. It has also helped to rescue and rehabilitate injured/washed-up loggerhead turtles over the years, and hold the distinction of being the first aquarium in the world to join the Our Ocean campaign. It’s certainly an aquarium for Galway to be proud of!
Their website can be found here: nationalaquarium.ie/
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