Missouri: Springfield: WOW Aquarium and Wildlife Museum, Part 2

WOW Wildlife Museum, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017


I covered the WOW Aquarium in Part 1 here.

Today it's about the Wildlife Museum.

It reminds me a bit of the Chicago Field Museum, which my mother and I visited some years ago during a burning-cold winter weekend, which you can read about here. The similarity of the two institutions is the catalog-like collection of living creatures, now dead, stuffed, and preserved for our observation. Not a bad thing, just a little disconcerting at times. Like being on a massive space ship, aimed for a new planetary home, taking with us a unique library of what was on Earth.

The WOW Wildlife Museum, like the Chicago Field Museum, also has exhibits depicting the clothing and arts of native peoples of North America. And paintings of historic America.

Chicago Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois. December 2009.

There are moments of awe in some of the WOW rooms, in which the awe is a consequence of an astonishing quantity of one thing. Like the room of mounted deer heads and the arch of antlers. Or the room of mountain sheep. 

There's a gasp-inducing exhibit of a world-record sized polar bear.

WOW Wildlife Museum, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

When I walked through the Wildlife Museum, I'd already spent so much of my mental and sensory energy on the Aquarium that I couldn't give the Wildlife Museum its due.

That was a shame.  

Missouri: Springfield: WOW Aquarium and Wildlife Museum, Part 1

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

December 2017

My two sisters, one of their friends, and I visited the new Wonders of Wildlife (WOW) Museums, the aquarium and the Wildlife National Museum.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

The visit ain't cheap. And, really, visiting both exhibits in one day is a challenge, especially for minors and for the most senior among us. Not just because it might be tiring, but because of the sensory overload, exacerbated by the hum and movement of the other visitors.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

If I lived close by, then I'd just buy the ticket for one of the two exhibits and return another day for the second exhibit. If I'm staying overnight, then I'd forego the savings of buying both tickets together and buy the tickets separately so I can go to one exhibit the first day and the second exhibit the next day.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

In this article, I'll focus on the Aquarium, and tomorrow, the Wildlife Museum. 

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

At first, I was pretty underwhelmed by the Aquarium. In the beginning, the traffic path isn't clear and I thought perhaps there were only two floors of the museum, one of which was consumed by award-winning fisherfolk. Which I didn't care about one whit. But one of my sisters noted there was a third floor, which I went to and that's when I began the long journey through the quite large Aquarium.

Three standouts for me:

• Two jellyfish tanks
• The darling, charming, personable sea snakes (who knew?!)
• The flirting or fighting Caribbean spiny lobsters

I had fun putting music to the jellyfish videos I took here and here (with one embedded below).

And here's a slide show of my jellyfish photos:

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

The sea snakes reminded me of the gladness of watching prairie dogs and meerkats.

WOW Aquarium, Springfield, Missouri. December 2017.

And below is a video. Enjoy:

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And here's a video of two Caribbean spiny lobsters conducting a dance or a battle.


If you'd like some gentle moments of serenity, I invite you to sink softly into a cloud of Pachelbel in blue below:

A deep breath.