Here you get to see everything from a starfish, sea horse, crabs, lobsters, croakers to groupers and hundreds of species of fish. But not many are aware of the city’s only Marine Fish Museum housed in the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Visakhapatnam Regional Centre, near Beach Road. Containing over 300 marine species and fish preserved in chemical solution, there are plans to increase the number of exhibits and also display endangered marine species from the east coast. Speaking about the marine fish museum, CMFRI scientist, museum-in-charge Pralaya Ranjan Behera said, “From the last couple of years, we started keeping the collected species under one roof and renovated the place. At present, we have around 300 species of marine creatures including commercially important fish, such as pomfret, mackerel, varieties of groupers, croakers, marine ornamental fish, marine lobster, shrimps, squids, crabs, molluscs, octopus, cephalopods, star fish and so on. We have preserved them in jars containing chemicals like formalin and labelled each jar with the scientific name of the species.” “We have now plans to enhance our collection and also include certain endangered and rare marine species found mainly in the eastern coast such as horseshoe crab (found only in Odisha-Bengal), sharks, electric ray to name a few,” added the scientist. This marine fish museum is said to be the only one-of-its-kind in the area. “Though citizens are not much aware about its existence, the museum, however annually gets around 1,000 students as visitors from schools, colleges and universities even from West Bengal and Odisha and entry is free for all,” said senior scientist and scientist-in-charge of CMFRI Subhadeep Ghosh. Just outside the museum, inside the entrance hall of CMFRI is another interesting display by CIFT (Central Institute of Fisheries Technology). Here a variety of fishing gears, accessories and equipment have been displayed such as vegetable twine, ropes, eye splice (loop at the end of rope), bends and basic knots, fishing nets and models of fishing crafts.