Japan aquarium FaceTime sessions with eels

A Japanese aquarium is organising video calls with its resident garden eels so they don't become too shy and forget the humans who used to gather outside their tank.

Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo is asking volunteers to interact with the garden eels through FaceTime, and has set up five iPads outside the tank to remind the eels what humans look like.

The eels, around 300 of them, used to pop up from their individual burrows in the sand and let their bodies sway in the water as humans watched, the aquarium said.

But since the closure of the aquarium because of the coronavirus pandemic, the eels have largely withdrawn into their shelters.

However, after more than three hours of FaceTime calls last Sunday, the eels began gradually to show their faces again and were less inclined to hide in the sand, the aquarium said.

(Representative Image)