Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, which opened in October 2025, features a huge array of marine critters, including Humboldt penguins, a Giant Pacific Octopus, manatees, sea turtles, sharks, spotted garden eels and the ever-playful river otters. The aquarium sports a 400,000-gallon, 20-foot-tall tank featuring a Gulf habitat. You can even touch and feed stingrays. The walls are decorated by muralists from around Sarasota. Every year, the aquarium will host provide about 70,000 school students from Sarasota and Manatees counties with free STEM education programs.
What’s it like inside the Mote Science Education Aquarium? Pictures tell the story:
Get more information about the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium and ticket information here.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Check out these photos of Sarasota’s new Mote aquarium
Reporting by Jeffrey Meesey, Mike Lang and Earle Kimel, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
