Aquarium of the Bay is a public aquarium

Public aquarium

A public aquarium is the aquatic counterpart of a zoo, housing living aquatic species for viewing. Most public aquariums feature tanks larger than those kept by home aquarists, as well as smaller tanks. Since the first public aquariums were built in the mid-19th century, they have become popular...

 located at Embarcadero and Beach Street, at the edge of Pier 39

Pier 39

Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, an interpretive center for the Marine Mammal Center, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of...

 in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. The Aquarium is focused on local aquatic animals from the San Francisco Bay and neighboring waters.

The Aquarium of the Bay is an affiliate of The Bay Institute and is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Association of Zoos and Aquariums

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums was founded in 1924 and is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of zoos and public aquariums in the areas of conservation, education, science, and recreation.The AZA headquarters is located in Silver...

 (AZA).

Animals

The Aquarium has over 50 shark

Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

s from species such as Sevengill sharks, leopard sharks, soupfins, spiny dogfish, brown smoothhounds and angel sharks. The Aquarium also has skates, bat rays and thousands of other animals including eels, flatfish

Flatfish

The flatfish are an order of ray-finned fish, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the head, one or the other migrating through and around the head during development...

, rockfish

Rockfish

Rockfish may refer to one of the following fishes:* One of several species in the Sebastes genus of the Sebastidae family, including the Shortraker rockfish, Rougheye rockfish, Blue rockfish, Yellow tail rockfish and many others....

, Wrasse

Wrasse

The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 82 genera, which are divided into nine subgroups or tribes....

, Gobies, Kelpfish

Kelpfish

The kelpfishes are a family of perciform fishes, native to coastal Australia and New Zealand.The name of the family, "Chironemidae", is from Greek cheir meaning "hands" and nema meaning "thread".There are six species in two genera:...

, Pricklebacks, Ronquil

Ronquil

Ronquils are perciform marine fish of the small family Bathymasteridae. Found only in Arctic and North Pacific waters, the ronquil family contains just seven species in three genera. The larger species are important to commercial fisheries as food fish...

, Sculpin

Sculpin

A Sculpin is a fish that belongs to the order Scorpaeniformes, suborder Cottoidei and superfamily Cottoidea, that contains 11 families, 149 genera, and 756 species...

 and Sturgeons.

Exhibits

The Aquarium is divided into three parts:

Discover the Bay

This exhibit has a variety of satellite tanks containing animals such as moray eels, Bay Pipefish (the father pipefish gives birth to their young), garibaldi

Garibaldi (fish)

The Garibaldi or Garibaldi damselfish is a brightly colored orange fish of the damselfish family that is native to the North-Eastern subtropical parts of the Pacific Ocean, ranging from Monterey Bay, California, to Guadalupe Island, Baja California...

 (the California state marine fish), and more.

Under the Bay

This is the aquarium's largest exhibit. It includes 300 feet (91.4 m) of tunnels and features thousands of aquatic animals and other sea creatures. The exhibit is a recreation of the San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

.

Touch the Bay

This exhibit lets visitors touch several types of animals including bat rays, skates, leopard sharks, sea stars, and sea cucumbers.

External links