Infolive.tv International Minute - Japanese Dancing Fish

The latest attraction at the Hakkei-jima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama Japan stars ten thousand sardines but is no canned performance. These tiny starlets dance and swirl around sharks and squid, gently mesmerising the audience with their glittering show twice a day. "Japanese sardines tend to be quite tense and swim around in a circle but when we throw the bait down at them they follow it down creating a pillar," press officer for the aquarium Kayo Manabe told Reuters. "Then when sharks charge into them they change shape again," However, ironically, the sharks - two 3-meter-long sand tiger sharks - are not very good at catching the sardines and rarely bother chasing them. The sardines' real enemies are the squid who swiftly make a meal out of them. "I think they look really nice. I'm surprised the shark hasn't eaten them," said Daniel Knox, 19 year-old visitor from New Zealand, in excitement. "I'm not a big fish eater, but I love watching them," 15 year-old visitor Miho Tsujimatsu told Reuters. "It was really beautiful, I'm glad I came," she added. Manabe, the aquarium press officer, said actually including the sardine's natural predators in the same tank has helped prolong their lives - well, at least those that can escape the clutches of the squid. The aquarium is even thinking of adding more cast members to the show latter this month though Manabe is not revealing the next in the line for thesupporting role in this fishy school play that will be running throughout the end of July in Japan.