About Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino
A living ocean in the middle of the Mojave Desert? Dive in — quite literally — to Shark Reef Aquarium, the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino's signature attraction and Las Vegas' most astounding undersea oasis. Shark Reef is the home of more than 2,000 animals, including 15 kinds of sharks, giant manta rays, green sea turtles, piranha, jellyfish, and sawfish.
Styled after the grand ruins of a lost civilization, Shark Reef features three unique environments. The Jungle provides habitat for rare marine-adjacent species such as the Komodo dragon, Burmese python, and golden crocodile; there's also a piranha tank full of ravenous Amazon fish. A glass tunnel winds through a tropical reef at the Temple, where visitors can also get a hands-on experience with horseshoe crabs, sharks, and rays at an interactive touch pool.
The centerpiece of Shark Reef is the Shipwreck, a 1.3-million-gallon self-contained sea, complete with a glass-walled tunnel to allow visitors a diver's-eye view of the third-largest aquarium in North America. And if that isn't up-close enough for you, try diving alongside Mandalay Bay's trained scuba guides among a higher concentration of exotic sharks than is found anywhere else on Earth. If scuba diving is out of your depth, Shark Reef offers an Animal Encounters program, where you can become an aquarist for a day and help feed stingrays, sharks, and sea turtles.
Shark Reef Aquarium was conceived as the heart of the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, and the two opened in conjunction in 2000. It was developed and built in consultation with the renowned Vancouver Aquarium at a cost of $60 million. Now, with close to a million visitors per year, it's one of the most popular attractions in Las Vegas.
Conservation and research remain paramount. The aquarium staff contributes to rehabilitating the aquatic environment at nearby Lake Mead, provides information on sustainable fishing practices, and maintains the only captive population of the rare Devil's Hole Pupfish. At the undersea crossroads of entertainment and education, Shark Reef is a must-visit adventure for the whole family.