Tag Archives: Children’s Aquarium of Fair Park

Details? Look back to the beginning.

And so ends this pictorial series of the Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park. The next time you’re in Dallas, dedicate a few hours to a side-trip to see it. I think you’ll be surprised.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Want a firm demonstration of the phrase “I love living in the future”? Look at what can be done with jellyfish enclosures. Jellyfish tanks aren’t absolutely new, but changing lighting that fluoresces the jellyfishes’ internal structures? You need color-changing LEDs for that. In the process, you get a slow, stately progression and circulation that you could watch for hours.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

One of the advantages to a public aquarium is the opportunity to show animal and plant species too dangerous or too invasive to risk general importation. The red-bellied piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri) is both, but not quite for the reasons one would expect. While legal for individuals to own in states with cold winters, possessing or transporting red-bellies in Texas understandably tends to rub authorities the wrong way. Contrary to popular expectations, the danger of some irresponsible fishkeeper letting piranha loose in Texas waterways isn’t the threat to humans. In their native habitats in the Amazon and Orinoco river networks, they tend to avoid humans. However, as fish-eaters, they’d strip out everything from minnows to alligator gar, and ultimately would leave nothing in our streams, rivers, and reservoirs besides piranha. Better to view them in circumstances such as these, where they aren’t going to get out due to carelessness or neglect.

On the other scale, the other big advantage to a public aquarium is in viewing species too rare or high-maintenance to justify private ownership. For example, the Children’s Museum has a very nice collection of Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri), a species both extremely protected and not suitable for general fishkeeping. Considering the size of adult lungfish, few private aquarists could afford a tank large enough to give one room, much less the three at the Children’s Aquarium. Get three of them together, and you practically have a party.

More to follow….

Details? Look back to the beginning.

While not as rare in captivity as they used to be, the Children’s Museum at Fair Park is still the place to see the world’s largest freshwater turtle in optimum conditions. The alligator snapping turtle, Macrochelys temminckii, ranges through Texas into the Gulf Coast, and occasionally as far north as Dallas. In 1987, I was lucky enough to see a large female in Carrollton, north of Dallas proper, during a very rare land excursion while she was hunting for a nesting site. The Children’s Aquarium alligator snapping turtle is about as big as the one I saw back then, with the help of a rich diet and a lot of care.

Details? Look back to the beginning.

Based on the name, you might assume that the main focus of the Children’s Aquarium was on fish. Well, that’s partly true, but the Aquarium has a longstanding reputation for exceptional reptile specimens, both of indigenous Texas species and introduced ones. For example, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans features “Spots”, a leucistic alligator, but the Children’s Aquarium has a full-on albino one.

More to follow…

Dallas’s Fair Park has plenty of surprises that don’t receive the recognition they deserve, and one of the most neglected is the Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park, previously known simply as the Dallas Aquarium. That changed back in the 1990s with the opening of the Dallas World Aquarium in downtown. While nowhere near as large as the World Aquarium, the Children’s Aquarium, now run by the Dallas Zoo, has its own unique charms.

In keeping with the rest of Fair Park, the Aquarium’s build and decoration come from the Art Deco school, most noticeably with the bas reliefs around the front of the building and the two concrete sea horses out front. In my first visit in the very early Nineties, the motif continued through the interior of the building. As mentioned previously, though, the Children’s Aquarium underwent an extensive renovation and remodeling in 2007, and one of the casualties was the baroque aquarium design. At the same time, considering the new displays, it’s an understandable casualty.

Over the next few days, keep checking back for photos: I was fond of the Aquarium in the past, and it’s definitely exceeded itself today.