Animals
When it was open, the aquarium had 60 exhibits with a total tank volume of 32,000 US gallons (120,000 l; 27,000 imp gal), and was home to over 1,500 fish of 146 species. The aquarium largely featured freshwater species native to the Great Lakes region, but also had salt-water species from around the world. Currently the aquarium is operating with a limited collection of fish species, as volunteers are still working to restore the aquarium.
The aquarium made news in 2002 when one of its female white-spotted bamboo sharks gave birth to two young despite not having been near a male in six years in a suspected rare case of parthenogenesis.
Read more about this topic: Belle Isle Aquarium
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“Lost at night in an immense forest, I only have a small light to guide me. A man appears who tells me: “My friend, blow out your candle in order to find your way.” This man is a theologian.
The sea, fluid garden filled with animals and plants.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)
“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Researchers, with science as their authority, will be able to cut [animals] up, alive, into small pieces, drop them from a great height to see if they are shattered by the fall, or deprive them of sleep for sixteen days and nights continuously for the purposes of an iniquitous monograph.... “Animal trust, undeserved faith, when at last will you turn away from us? Shall we never tire of deceiving, betraying, tormenting animals before they cease to trust us?””
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)