Tennessee Aquarium: Island Life

The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga has a new exhibit in the Ocean Journey building devoted to Island Life.

What surprises me most about this exhibit is that it’s not just tropical island life on exhibit, it’s all kinds of islands. So expect habitats on desert islands and arctic islands as well. My favorite tank is near the end, the Vancouver Island habitat.

Island Life

The Island Life exhibit is near the end of Ocean Journey, right before you exit into the underwater caverns part of the building.

You enter into what you would expect from an island exhibit, a tropical reef tank.

Near this, a bronze statue of a Galapagos Island tortoise is perfect for photo opportunities.

On the far wall is a sign that challenges your idea of an island. Is it necessarily surrounded by water? There are flip-up panels at kid height with examples of different kinds of islands (including a kitchen island, har har.)

Fish Like Stars

There is one space soon after the entrance where you pass through a dark hallway. It’s filled with Flashlight Fish that blink luminescent panels on their sides to attract food when they hunt at night.

When I went on opening day, there was too much light in the hallway, and they tended to crowd down at the floor and swim back and forth in a bit of a panic. There are plans to make the hallway darker, and then the fish will spread out floor to ceiling in a wall of blinking lights.

Here’s a video from the Tenneessee Aquarium that shows them blinking away under dim red light.

More Kinds of Islands

In the rest of the exhibit, you can find a desert habitat, tree monitors, geckos, and a lovely Panther Chameleon. There are videos with knobs you can turn to speed up or slow down a gecko’s walk or a chameleon’s tongue.

Vancouver Island

The biggest tank and the centerpiece of the Island Life exhibit is the Vancouver Island habitat. This long, curved tank has waves that crash in and over the rocky shoreline. And while there are a few fish, the draw is the colorful sea anemones and starfish that cling to the rocks and sway with the crashing waves.

At the far end of the exhibit, there is a place for kids (and adults–I did!) to crawl into and view the tank from one end with the waves crashing in over your head. It gives a marvelous long view of the whole tank.

Just after this, there is a “play anemone” where kids can run in and out of foam fingers, like you’re Nemo the clownfish. When I was there, this was FULL of children running in and out and falling all over, and no one seemed to be getting hurt.

Underwater Caverns

After this, you enter the “Underwater Caverns” part of Ocean Journey. This is my favorite, most immersive area in this building. It’s dark and cool with the watery light filtering down and there are lots of little cubby holes to climb into.

I really recommend checking out this new exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium! If you haven’t visited before, make sure to tour both the Ocean and the River Journey buildings and make time to explore the area around the Aquarium and the Tennessee River. It’s a really amazing experience!