The is an aquarium located in the ward of Minato in Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, near Osaka Bay. When it first opened, it was the largest public aquarium in the world. It is a member of the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
The aquarium is about a five-minute walk from Osakako Station on the Osaka Municipal Subway Chūō Line, and is next to the Tempozan Ferris Wheel.
History
In 1988, with the aim of redeveloping the Osaka Bay Area, the Kaiyukan and Tempozan Marketplace were to be built following the success stories of aquariums and commercial facilities overseas. The aquarium was named "Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan" by the general public and opened in 1990. The number of visitors reached 1 million on the 40 days of the opening and 2 million on the 101 days, The final number of visitors during the year reached 5.6 million, surpassing the national record held at that time Tokyo Sea Life Park and being the fastest record in Japan.
The number of visitors reached 50 million on February 26, 2008. Achievement in 6317 days (about 18 years) is the fastest among aquariums in Japan, and about 60% of the visitors are repeaters. In 2014, the total number of visitors exceeded 65 million. In 2017, the number of visitors reached 75 million, making it the most visited aquarium in Japan.
Exhibits
Visitors will go up to the eighth floor on the escalator, passing through the Aqua Gate, a tunnel tank with various tropical fish. After exiting the escalator is the Japan Forest, which recreates a Japanese forest and holds Asian small-clawed otters, Japanese giant salamanders, black-crowned night herons and many other native freshwater animals.
The walk-through aquarium displays marine life in several habitats comprising 27 tanks in 16 main exhibits with a total volume of 10,941 tons of water. The habitats are from the Ring of Fire area of the Pacific Ocean and these include the Aleutian Islands (tufted puffins), Monterey Bay (California sea lions and largha seals), Gulf of Panama (ring-tailed coati, long-spine porcupinefish and blotcheye soldierfish), Ecuador Rain Forest (arapaima, red-bellied piranhas, capybara & green iguanas), Antarctica (Adélie, gentoo & king penguins), Tasman Sea (Pacific white-sided dolphins) and Great Barrier Reef (palette surgeonfish, pennant coralfish & threadfin butterflyfish), Seto Inland Sea (common octopus, Japanese spiny lobster & red seabream), Coast of Chile (Japanese anchovies and South American pilchards), Cook Sea Strait (loggerhead sea turtles, deepwater burrfish & scarlet wrasse), Japan Deeps (Japanese spider crabs, elephant fish & Hilgendorf's saucord) and a jellyfish gallery (moon jellyfish & northern sea nettle).
The largest tank is the Pacific Ocean tank which is deep and holds of water and a variety of fish including Indian mackerel, Pacific bluefin tuna, reef manta rays, scalloped hammerhead sharks and two whale sharks.
The tanks used in the aquarium are made of of acrylic glass. The largest single pane measures six meters by five meters by thirty centimeters and weighs roughly 10 tons. At the thicknesses used, regular glass would be unwieldy and would not have the desired transparency.
The most popular animals on display are the whale sharks. In 1990, the Okinawa Ocean Expo Aquarium (predecessor of Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium), were the first in the world to whale sharks in captivity, but did not exhibit them. At that time, the Osaka Aquarium was the only facility in the world that owned whale sharks. In 1994 the aquarium successfully captivated a manta ray which was the second in the world at the time. Later in 1995 the aquarium managed to successfully hold an ocean sunfish in captivity.
The "New Interactive Area" that opened in 2013 allows visitors to see the animals up close and possibly touch them. In the "New Interactive Area", 3 zones are constructed, the Arctic Zone, in which visitors see ringed seals, Falkland Islands Zone, where they can see southern rockhopper penguins, and the Maldives Zone, in which they can directly touch stingrays and small sharks like brownbanded bamboo sharks and coral catsharks.
In 2020, the museum shop was reopened on February 22 after renewal work was carried out to coincide with the 30th anniversary of its opening.
Research and conservation
Osaka Aquarium are focusing on research on sharks and Rays. By 2016, Kaiyukan had successfully captivity or breeding 47 species of sharks, 37 species of rays, and 1 species of ghost shark, for a total of 85 species. In addition, the past eight surveys of tagging whale sharks have revealed that they can migrate to the Philippines and dive to a depth of .