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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Otters holding hands

After New Year's Eve had been recovered from (a process that involved pancakes and lots of Super Mario Bros) we headed to the famous Kaiyukan Aquarium (still in Osaka), whose star attractions are two giant whale sharks, who glided slowly around the main tank accompanied by schools of fish groupies (pictured)...


And a selection of otters, both sea and river varieties.


What's the difference, I hear you ask? Well, aside from the obvious habitat disparities, the sea otters are about three times the size of the river guys. Here's a helpful chart, including the rare species Lutra Mirabela.


The aquarium also had these semi-aquatic rodents called capybaras, the largest rodent in the world. Japan is obsessed with them and they draw a crowd. Remember this post from way back last September? The fat, brown, squishy thing I won was a capybara! Kawaii!

3 comments:

Greg Harbin said...

Hi!

I just wanted to leave a note to say I'm reading…my SO found this site on Ravelry. We're both English teachers in Sendai, too. Your mentioning of Mario was hilarious, as I spent my Christmas week holed up at home with the flu, beating Super Mario Brothers World in about four days of on-and-off play.

Where is this aquarium? I've been to the Yagiyama Zoo, but I didn't know there was an aquarium in the area!

Gareth said...

Kaiyukan is actually in Osaka, not Sendai, although if you're looking for some underwater action close to home there's a decent aquarium at Matsushima. No whale sharks or sea otters there, though, I'm afraid.

Sophia said...

Mirabel, you're the hottest otter ever!