Endangered creature — with saw-like snout — makes Georgia aquarium debut. See it swim
An endangered fish at a Georgia aquarium is poking around its new home, video shows.
The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta welcomed the newcomer — a longcomb sawfish named Ginsu — to its exhibit in a Nov. 9 Facebook video. The toothy creature came from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the post said, joining a habitat filled with whale sharks, manta rays and giant grouper.
Another longcomb sawfish named Green already called the Georgia Aquarium home before Ginsu’s arrival, meaning the aquarium now has a pair of sawfish. It’s one of the only aquariums “to house two sawfish together,” according to the Georgia Aquarium.
Longcomb sawfish, also known as green sawfish, come from lagoons and bays near Australia, Papua New Guinea and Africa’s east coast. They are a bottom-dwelling fish that eat “slow schooling fishes,” the aquarium said.
One of the most striking features of the sawfish is its rostrum, which is the long, sharp snout the fish is named for. A longcomb sawfish can have anywhere between 25 to 34 teeth protruding from its rostrum, which is used to stun prey, the aquarium said.
The rostrum is also what happens to get the sawfish into a lot of trouble, as their beak often gets entangled in fishing nets, according to the aquarium. As a result, the sawfish is critically endangered, which means it is at an extremely high risk of going extinct in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Ginsu arrived to the Georgia aquarium in a large shipping container filled with water, the video shows. Her rostrum was covered with a cloth-like material.
Staff entered the container to help hoist out Ginsu, who was then bagged up to be delivered to her new exhibit, according to the video. Ginsu was lowered into the colossal tank by scuba divers, and she settled on the bottom of the floor.
Then, once acclimated to the new environment, the video shows Ginsu swimming off to join Green and the other aquatic animals in the exhibit.
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