Aquarium-Muséum, Public aquarium and university museum at Institut de zoologie Liège, Belgium
The Aquarium-Muséum is a museum of the University of Liège housed in the 19th-century neoclassical Institute of Zoology. Its aquarium occupies three main rooms, including a hall of sharks and coral reefs, with about 150 species in some forty tanks. The museum on the second floor holds around 20,000 specimens, among them a 19-metre fin whale skeleton.
The building opened in 1962 as a teaching and research facility for the university. The oldest items in its collections date back to the early 1800s.
The name reflects its dual purpose as both a working aquarium and a research collection center. Today visitors can see how these two functions exist side by side, with historic specimens displayed alongside living exhibits.
The Aquarium-Museum is housed in the Institute of Zoology at the University of Liège. The aquarium remains open, but the museum has been closed to the public since April 2022 for major modernization work, with reopening planned for 2027. Check the aquarium's opening hours before visiting, as the museum is not accessible.
The TréZOOr room, opened in June 2017, traces the university's natural science collections back to 1817 and holds the 49 glass invertebrate models of the Blaschka collection, classed as a treasure of the French Community on 7 June 2017.
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