The first permanent museum exhibition of naturalised animals held at the Vasco da Gama Aquarium opened in 1913. It included sea and river specimens and was extremely well received by the public.
This exhibition, which became the original centre of the museum's collection, brought together fish preserved in a liquid, various models of fishing boats from the Central Fisheries Commission and other specimens from the Rio Ave Aquaculture Station and the then Bocage Museum in Lisbon, now the National Museum of Natural History and Science.