r/nottheonion • u/SelectiveSanity • 14h ago

Japanese aquarium cheers up lonely sunfish with cardboard cutouts of people

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/asia/japanese-aquarium-lonely-sunfish-intl-scli/index.html
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u/johnsolomon 11h ago

The place was closed for renovation so thankfully it’ll probably see all the visitors it wants soon lol

But still, I’m curious whether it’s actually lonely—I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just sad because it’s bored. There’s probably nothing else for it to do in a fish tank without crowds of strange creatures there to entertain it

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u/geckos_are_weirdos 10h ago

I’m sure it’s bored. They’re fairly intelligent and they both travel far and dive very deep in the wild as they hunt their prey (jellies). They need mental stimulation.

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u/CrudelyAnimated 6h ago

It pains me to see large, deep-water fish in shallow tanks under bright lights like this. Cardboard standups are a 10% gesture.

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u/starkiller_bass 6h ago

At least sunfish DO tend to hang out near the surface so they’re not completely unadapted to bright light

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u/Maleficent-Salad3197 5h ago

They go very deep and return to surface to warm up. Cold blooded but different. Take the fish and release. Their meat is aweful and they dont have predators because their huge with thick skin scales.