Kamo Aquarium

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Kamo Aquarium, officially Tsuruoka Municipal Kamo Aquarium, is in Tsuruoka city, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. It is best known for its jellyfish displays.

The aquarium’s first building opened in 1930, with later rebuilds, and the current facility opened on June 1, 2014. In the late 1990s the museum faced financial trouble, but director Tatsuo Murakami developed methods to breed jellyfish, turning Kamo into a leading jellyfish museum.

In 2005 Kamo Aquarium earned a Guinness World Record for displaying the most jellyfish species, surpassing Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. The jellyfish program helped attract visitors from around the world.

The museum’s work also drew international attention after Osamu Shimomura, along with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Kamo’s display of Aequorea victoria contributed to this fame and helped increase visitor numbers.

In 2017, a three-year-old female northern elephant seal named Naomi was found on Sanze beach near Tsuruoka. She recovered at Kamo Aquarium and, by March 2018, weighed about 400 kg. She lived in a pool at the aquarium and was named Naomi Osaka through a public vote.