[Yamagata] The world's largest variety of jellyfish on display! "Tsuruoka City Kamo Aquarium"

Tsuruoka City Kamo Aquarium is a municipal aquarium located in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture

Tsuruoka's world-famous dream aquarium

It boasts the world's largest variety of jellyfish on display, and also hosts other events such as feeding shows of seagulls.
In the jellyfish exhibition room, the "Kuranetarium," the figures of jellyfish swimming gently emerge from the dim light, and the mysterious movements of their tentacles create a beautiful and fantastical world.

Photo by Scott Edmunds – DSC_The main Jellyfish tank / Size-adapted.

At one point, the number of visitors dropped dramatically and the aquarium was in danger of closing, but around 1999, it began exhibiting full-scale jellyfish, which proved popular and led to an increase in visitor numbers.
In recent years, tourists have been visiting at a faster pace than usual, breaking the previous record of 220,000 visitors and setting a new annual record.

In 2001, the number of species on display reached 12, making it the number one in Japan. After that, the number of species kept and exhibited increased, and a specialized exhibition room was built as a "Kuranetarium," and in 2005, it became the number one in the world in terms of the number of exhibits.
Another popular attraction is the green glowing Aequorea victoria jellyfish, which became famous when Shimomura Osamu won the Nobel Prize in 2008.
In November of the same year, a public experiment was conducted under Shimomura Osamu's advice, and Aequorea victoria jellyfish were successfully made to glow green. This
is extremely rare, as jellyfish in aquariums rarely glow normally, and is the first time this has happened in Japan.

At the restaurant inside the aquarium, you can try a variety of jellyfish dishes.
Kamo Aquarium is famous for its jellyfish ice cream, making it a truly unique aquarium that is all about jellyfish.

In 2014, ahead of its 50th anniversary, Kamo Aquarium underwent a major renovation, relocating to a newly constructed facility and reopening for business on June 1st of the same year after a six-month hiatus. The
new aquarium, reborn as the "Jellyfish Dream Hall," has an exhibition space 1.6 times larger, allowing visitors to get up close and personal with many fish and 50 different types of jellyfish, both large and small.
The highlight of the renovation is a 5-meter diameter tank filled with 2,000 dancing jellyfish, and visitors can immerse themselves in a fantastical world in front of the tank.

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