This is a sunfish in a Japanese aquarium. It became lonely after visitors stopped during renovations and refused to eat and rubbed its body against the tank walls showing stress, then started eating again within a day after staff placed human face cutouts near its tank.

>“We couldn’t figure out the cause and took various measures, but one of the staff members said, ‘Maybe it’s lonely because it misses the visitors?’ We thought 99% chance ‘No way!’ But we attached the uniforms of the staff members (to the tank)” with a little bit of hope, the aquarium said.

>“Then…the next day, it was in good health again!

>A picture posted by the aquarium shows the sunfish swimming in its tank, one of its eyes turned toward makeshift “people” made from cardboard cutout faces and aquarium uniforms on hangers stuck to the glass. Staff have been waving at the sunfish, too, in an effort to cheer it up.

>A lonely sunfish does seem unlikely, the aquarium said, but it added that this fish is curious and would swim up to the front of its tank whenever people came to visit.

>But once visitors stopped coming, it stopped eating its jellyfish meals and began to rub its body against the tank, leading staff to suspect that it had developed digestive issues or was infected by parasites.

>Sunfish are Known to be easily stressed and behaviorally reactive to environment changes.

>They can weight up to 2.5 tons (2500 kilos) – that’s heavier than a rhino!

>They usually live on their own in the ocean

>Newly hatched sunfish can weigh just a gram, and grow huge amounts into adulthood – some can grow to be 60 million times larger than when they hatched

[SOURCE 1](https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/20/asia/japanese-aquarium-lonely-sunfish-intl-scli) [SOURCE 2](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/cwyp7272nvgo)

“Where’d the zoo go? I’m so bored.” – the fish?