Texas State Aquarium

Connecting people with nature and inspiring conservation of the Gulf of Mexico.

Every visit to the Texas State Aquarium is a new and exciting discovery. Thousands of animals representing over 330 species are displayed in entertaining and educational exhibits.

Get up close and personal to Atlantic bottlenose dolphins from above and below the water in Dolphin Bay. The Aquarium’s special underwater viewing room offers a nose-to-nose experience with the Aquarium’s dolphins, Kai and Shadow. Watch as Shadow and Kai leap through the air demonstrating their athletic and acrobatic skills in our new Ocean Games dolphin show.

Visit the Islands of Steel exhibit, where sharks and sea turtles live among schools of snapper, tarpon, redfish, jack and grouper. This oil rig platform replica gives guests an underwater view of the many habitats that are formed on offshore oil platforms. Look to the skies as hawks soar, parrots chatter, and exotic mammals delight guests in our new Wild Flight Show at the Hawn Wild Flight Theater.

Texas State Aquarium

Watch as rehabilitated Kemp’s ridley, green, loggerhead, and hawksbill sea turtles gracefully glide in the natural lagoon-like habitat of Tortuga Cay. These amazing animals serve as ambassadors for their species, as they have all been deemed non-releasable due to the severity of their injuries. Nearby North American river otters play the day away in Otter Creek, where you can catch a glimpse of daily training and enrichment sessions.

Dolphins, sharks and otters aren’t the only ones getting wet this summer at the Texas State Aquarium.  Aquarium guests can cool off in H-E-B Splash Park, the coolest addition to the Aquarium’s fascinating exhibits and family-friendly entertainment options.  This zero-depth wetscape water play area features water spray jets, interactive water features, water cannons and more.  

Touch them. Feed them. Just don’t dare squeeze them! The Texas State Aquarium’s newest exhibit, Stingray Lagoon, is the most interactive exhibit to date – with daily opportunities to not only touch, but hand-feed more than 30 stingrays!

Texas State Aquarium

Stingray Lagoon’s 10,000 gallons of seawater is home to over 30 rays representing the Southern, Atlantic, and cownose species. All three species of rays are indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico. Guests will have several opportunities throughout the day to feed the stingrays, when they attend the new “Feed the Rays” program, given from a live presentation area.

In the hands-on touch pools of Living Shores, visitors can safely interact with species such as hermit crabs, lightning whelks, and pencil urchins. Tarpon, green moray eels and barracuda swim with divers in Flower Gardens, a 40,000-gallon exhibit that replicates an actual coral reef located 300 miles straight out the Aquarium's back door in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Texas State Aquarium gets its personality from its inhabitants and their individual stories.  There’s Bo, the 10-foot American alligator star of Swamp Tales; Jackie the Harris’ Hawk who entertains guests in the Wild Flight show, and Grace, a bald eagle who was rehabilitated in Alaska and now makes her home in the Aquarium’s Eagle Pass exhibit along with Brutus, a Eurasian Eagle Owl. With so much to see and do, what are you waiting for?
 

Hours of Operation
Regular Hours:
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Daily
Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Days

Summer Hours (March through Labor Day)
9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Daily