Marine life

Brief Information

The Marine Life Center is built around an immersive effect: the main open-ocean habitat is viewed through a panoramic panel 36 meters wide and 8.3 meters high. It is designed so that a person standing before the glass feels not as if they are at a display window, but as if they are on the seabed.

Opened in 2012, the park on Sentosa Island combines two different formats: S.E.A. Aquarium and Adventure Cove Waterpark. Inside the oceanarium are 45 million liters of seawater, 10 habitat zones, and 49 marine habitats. These numbers are not important in themselves: they explain why the space presents not one “large aquarium,” but a set of different marine environments.

What to Notice First

It is worth comparing the main open-ocean habitat with the other zones: the panoramic glass works like a large-scale stage, while the division into habitats shows that the animals here are distributed according to their natural environments. The most noticeable detail is the enormous viewing panel; its size is needed for the illusion of the seabed, not only for an impressive view.

A separate focus is the animal collection. The manta ray collection is described as the largest in the world; alongside it, the original description lists bottlenose dolphins, scalloped hammerhead sharks, Japanese spider crabs, guitarfish, and the chambered nautilus. In the water-park section, the same principle is turned into an attraction: the 620-meter Adventure River passes through 14 themed scenes, while artificial grottoes and an underground aquarium shift the marine theme from observation into movement.