Atlanta: The Aquarium

I was going to save the post about the Georgia Aquarium for last, but decided to stick a photo-heavy entry right in the middle of it all. Saves me from having to type all of those words!

The aquarium is broken into five sections. The first one we visited was the Georgia Explorer section. As you can imagine, this exhibit has the stuff native to Georgia. I didn't take any pictures here, but did touch a starfish.

The second section was River Scout, highlighting animals that live in and near rivers around the world. Here we saw Asian otters, electric catfish, and lots of other stuff.

Next up was Cold Water Quest. This was beyond cool - spider crabs (yum), sea lions, sea otters, beluga whales, penguins, giant octopus (it's in that last picture... can you see it?) and sea dragons were all on display.

The Tropical Diver area was where we spent the second-longest amount of time. Aside from the jellyfish (SO cool) and garden eels (which hide in the sand when fish go near them), they had a big coral reef display with tons of pretty tropical fish. They have touch-screen computers set up at the reef, so that you can look up the fish that you see and find out more about them. Sadly, the educational aspect was completely lost on me. I can't remember one single name of the pretty fish I looked up!

And of course I saved the best for last: Ocean Voyager. The whale sharks are in this giant display, but they're not in there alone. There are other sharks, rays, and fish (giant grouper, anyone?) to watch. The exhibit begins with a glass tunnel (where Scott first saw the whale sharks), and there is a room with an entire wall of aquarium at the end of the exhibit. Scott and I sat on the risers watching the fish for over an hour. It was amazing.

I think whale sharks are an example of something that just has to be seen in person. Hopefully this video I took helps a bit. (don't bother with the audio...it's just kids screaming)