New wonders of wildlife aquarium and museum turns conservation knob to 11

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The new Johnny Morris' Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium doesn't have just one multi-story mega-tank parading exotic fish species. There are at least three, and that's not counting the Bait Ball, a basement-to-second-floor, see-through aquatic sheath in which thousands of little herring swim around in what I can only imagine is abject terror while a handful of sharks circle them and sometimes glide through them.

Not only is there a tidal-pool tank for petting horseshoe crabs and cute, kiddie-sized sharks, but there's also a full-on stroke-a-stingray experience stocked with five species of the undulating flat fish. Soon enough, the aquarium hopes to offer visitors a dive-with-the-sharks option, this one involving the non-pettable kind.

And when it came time, in late September, to open