A while back, I put out a call for aquarists, seeing if I could find anyone who could help me make this page a little more representative of the other half of the zoo community. No dice. So, I figured I'd have to do it all by my lonesome. My first ever species fact profile of a fish - the green moray eel - is a step towards being more representative. This Sporcle quiz is a next step.
It's surprising how few aquariums there are compared to zoos... but I guess it shouldn't be. Aquariums are much more expensive to maintain, what with all of their life-support systems and such (and feeding, too... no on in an aquarium is living off of hay or other cheap foodstuffs). Seawater either has to be pumped in (hence the prevalence of aquariums in harbor towns), or artificially made at great expense.
Still, I was kind of shocked that there were so few aquariums... 72 cities total (and that includes Washington DC, which is now, alas, lacking in the aquarium department) - some of which have aquariums that double as zoos, or are really just a few fish tanks. And how do some big cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis/St. Paul not have aquariums?
I didn't do too super of a job on this quiz, but maybe you'll do better...
The National Aquarium in Baltimore, overlooking the Inner Harbor
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