Shark Tunnel: The popular shark exhibit and Shark Tank Adventure Tunnel at the Oklahoma Aquarium leads visitors through the 500,000-gallon shark tank, where they can watch sharks swim around and view the largest number of bull sharks living in an aquarium setting anywhere. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Pot-bellied Seahorse: The Pot-bellied Seahorse is a unique fish. that appears to have a head like a horse, tail of a monkey, and fins of a fish. Seahorses are the only known animal where the male gives birth. The brood pouch is used to hold eggs. The female will deposit up to 700 eggs into the male’s pouch, where he fertilizes them. After about four weeks, he is ready to give birth, the pouch opens and contractions expel juvenile seahorses into the world. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos
One of the last things I expected to discover on our recent journey through Oklahoma was a world class aquarium but that is what happened! We spent several days traveling across Oklahoma, visiting and discovering many wonderful towns and sites and the aquarium was a most surprising find.
Our travel route was simple. I have been driving and photographing Route 66 for a few years and I had never driven a stretch of the road in western Oklahoma, so I wanted to revisit many of the wonderful sites along the “Mother Road” from Oklahoma City to the Kansas border.
We spent several days in Tulsa and the surrounding area. Besides the Route 66 project, we enjoyed a few other attractions while we were in town. One of the most unique stops was a visit to the Oklahoma Aquarium. After having the aquarium recommended as a nice place to visit we decided to check it out.
The Oklahoma Aquarium sits on the banks of the Arkansas River just to the south of Tulsa in the suburb community of Jenks, Okla. The beautiful facility had a welcoming lobby with a carousel for children. It was beautiful but unique in that the rides were not horses and other animals but each character on the carousel was a sea animal. A cafe and a gift shop were on the sides of the lobby.
Entering the aquarium area one finds that the facility has both freshwater and saltwater exhibits with many species of marine life in all exhibits and tanks. There were examples of local marine life found in rivers and lakes around Oklahoma, to exhibits of marine life from a thousand miles away.
The aquarium has set times when visitors can interact and touch various animals such as jellyfish, stingrays, and many other species. Feeding times are set so that visitors can witness that process as well. Education, inspiration, and conservation were evident through the exhibits and tanks filled with a wide variety of fish and other marine life.
While there are numerous tanks and displays of thousands of species of marine life I think the most popular areas were the tanks that contained a Loggerhead Sea Turtle, stingrays, small sharks and other fish. The very impressive shark tank was another favorite at the aquarium. The shark tank is a 500,000 gallon tank that houses several sharks. The aquarium has the largest collection of bull sharks in an aquarium setting anywhere. Another feature in the shark area is the Shark Tank Adventure Tunnel where visitors walk through the tank in a glass tunnel with water and sharks on each side and above them as they pass through the tunnel.
We did not expect to visit an aquarium of this caliber within a landlocked state such as Oklahoma, but we were happy that we visited this spectacular marine wonderland.
Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country, and he shares his photographs, which appear in the “Posts from the Road” series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Sea Turtle: The Oklahoma Aquarium is home to a Loggerhead Sea Turtle. The large turtle moves about in the tank but seems to enjoy staying close to the glass wall of the tank when visitors are present. The Loggerhead Sea Turtle is found on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. The animals can grow to about 3 1/2 feet in diameter. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Midas Cichlid: The Midas Cichlid fish is found in freshwater lakes and rivers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This unique male fish can grow to 12 inches and the female a bit smaller. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Carousel: A beautiful carousel sits in the lobby of the Oklahoma Aquarium. The carousel is unique in that all of the animals seen on the carousel are sea creatures. Seen is a dad standing beside his child as they prepare to ride the carousel. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com
Oklahoma Aquarium: The Oklahoma Aquarium sits on the banks of the Arkansas River in Jenks, Okla., a suburb of Tulsa. The 72,000 square foot facility opened in 2003 and has hosted millions of visitors since opening. In addition to the aquarium exhibits and tanks there is a cafe onsite as well as a gift shop. There is also a generous amount of space for meetings or conferences in the facility. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com