Aquarium - Under Water Zoo (Part 2) » BLUFF-Jerin's Blog — a story from the original BLUFF journal. Watch the film below.
Beyond the big tank
Most visitors to the Dubai Aquarium remember the tunnel — but the quieter star of the attraction is upstairs. The Underwater Zoo, on the top level of Dubai Mall, is a proper small zoo in its own right, and this second part of the story is about the creatures that live above the sharks.
Three worlds under one roof
The zoo is arranged as a walk through three habitats. The Rainforest zone hums with piranhas, poison dart frogs and archer fish that spit jets of water to knock insects from the leaves. The Rocky Shore brings the cold coasts indoors — playful otters, crabs the size of dinner plates and touch pools where children meet starfish for the first time. The Living Ocean zone finishes with the strangest beauty: drifting jellyfish lit like lanterns, seahorses anchored to weed by their tails, and a giant Pacific octopus that seems to study you back.
King Croc
The zoo's heavyweight resident is King Croc, a saltwater crocodile more than five metres long and weighing around 750 kilograms. Crocodiles are the closest thing our era has to living dinosaurs — their design has barely changed in tens of millions of years — and seeing one at this scale, utterly motionless yet unmistakably watching, is an experience that stays with you longer than any shark.
Tips for the upper level
Give the Underwater Zoo at least an hour; most people rush it after the tunnel and miss half its residents. The animal encounter sessions — feedings and keeper talks run through the day — are worth planning around, and the glass-bottom boat that floats on top of the main tank departs from this level, giving you a keeper's-eye view down into ten million litres of blue. If you are choosing between a quick tunnel walk and the full combined ticket, take the combined one: the zoo above is where the aquarium becomes a story rather than a photograph.
More from Dubai in this journal: Return of the Pharaohs at Wafi and Global Village Season 31.
