Each of the main tanks contains organisms from a par­ticular environment. Black coral entwined with snake stars, crinoids, unusual sea urchins and a couple of horse mussels constitute a display from Fiordland. At night the snake stars unwind and capture morsels of food on their tenta­cles. I watched seahorses glide sedately about another tank, propelled by incessant flutterings of their fins. Lobsters, blue cod, southern pigfish, wrasse, trumpeters, rockfish, blue mold and many more jockeyed for position elsewhere. Warty, wandering sea anemones the size of jam jars clung comatosely to the blades of seaweed, while paua and large black slugs shared an aquarium with a vigorous octopus, which swung smoothly about and clasped the glass wall a few inches in front of my face.