Perched over the river that runs through downtown Chattanooga, the Tennessee Aquarium offers a novel way to discover the magic of sea life. Exhibits here trace the path from mountain streams to the sea, showcasing aquatic animals in representations of their natural habitats. In the ocean display, visitors can see exotic fish gliding over multicolored coral reef formations, but the most popular attractions are the river otters cavorting in cascading waterfalls, and the penguins diving in and out of their cold-water habitat. The aquarium also features thousands of insects that flutter from flower to flower in the butterfly garden, as well as a gigantic IMAX 3-D theater that screens fascinating movies about nature and science.
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Penguins
I spent a few fun hours with my five-year-old at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga the other week. It’s a great day trip from Nashville (or, I guess, Atlanta, although they have their own incredible aquarium). I was really impressed with the penguin exhibit, which featured a few dozen very active penguins of several different species. The windows to the exhibit were very clean, which doesn’t seem to be the case with many penguin exhibits, giving visitors a clear view of the penguins on land and in the water.
Aliens
Here’s another shot from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. This was only one of a dozen jellyfish tanks on display at the aquarium. When I saw this display, I thought of any number of scifi movies and TV shows I’ve seen over the years where the good guys enter the bad guy’s lair to find alien creatures floating eerily in tanks. These aren’t aliens, just some of the more unusual animals on this planet of ours!
