Numazu Deep Sea Aquarium, Private aquarium at the Port of Numazu, Shizuoka, Japan

The Numazu Deep Sea Aquarium occupies two floors inside the Minato 83 Banchi complex near Numazu Port. Its ground floor holds tanks of deep-sea creatures, including a corner of odd-looking organisms and a bioluminescence section; the upper floor houses the Coelacanth Museum with two frozen specimens kept at -15 to -18°C and three taxidermy mounts.

The institution opened its doors in December 2011 as the first aquarium worldwide dedicated entirely to deep-sea fauna. Its founding followed decades of research work in nearby Suruga Bay, one of Japan's deepest bays.

The displays feature frozen specimens and models of deep-sea creatures that inhabit the waters off Japan's coast. Visitors learn through interactive stations about the biodiversity of Suruga Bay and how it contributes to understanding life in extreme depths.

A bus from Numazu Station brings visitors to the harbor in about 15 minutes, where the aquarium is located. The facility is compact in layout, so a full walk through all sections takes roughly an hour.

The aquarium holds five coelacanths caught in 1979 by a Japanese scientific expedition off the Comoros in the western Indian Ocean. Two are kept frozen at minus 15 to 18 degrees in custom glass freezers that cost 25 million yen; the other three are mounted specimens, the largest about 1.8 m long. They were captured before CITES protection and are the only coelacanths in Japan with an international rare species registration certificate.