 Over the winter holidays I spent my time in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona. One of my favorite places to show people who have never been to Tucson before is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The museum, which I consider more of a zoo, highlights local desert animals and how they have adapted to living in the Sonoran Desert, and every exhibit is very well thought out and executed very tastefully. This is not exactly the type of museum you would expect to see many fish at, let alone marine fish. As your calendars switched over to 2013, though, the Desert Museum opened their first new exhibit in over a decade: the Warden Aquarium. This aquarium not only showcases local Arizona native freshwater fishes that are threatened and endangered, but also has a large marine component including many reef fishes from the Gulf of California and other parts of Mexico, especially Cabo Pulmo. I was extremely excited to see this new exhibit, and very happy to see the Mexican fishes present, because Arizona is in the perfect location for collaborative studies on Gulf of California fishes (the closest beach to Tucson is on the Gulf of California in Mexico, not San Diego as many assume). Unfortunately I only had my phone on me to take pictures so you'll have to deal with dark photos here. The exhibit also educates the public on marine conservation issues, and freshwater desert fish conservation. Overall it was a great exhibit, and just another reason to visit this amazing museum if you're ever in Tucson. 
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