Photo/Illutration

Editor's note: This is part of a series of videos offering an up-close perspective on the animal kingdom. A special 360-degree video camera system was set up in zoos and other facilities to show how the animals view their world as they interact.

Also visit our special 360-DEGREE LIVES page (http://t.asahi.com/360lives), where you can watch all the previous videos.

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The young woman is right up close, almost hypnotized by the long, slim bodies swaying in front of her.

“I am captivated by their wriggling movement,” says the 23-year-old, staring at the spotted garden eels for nearly three minutes with her head pressed up against the tank.

The eels stick out from their burrows dug into the sandy bottoms of the tank, and their graceful chorus-line movements in the water current make them one of the most popular sea creatures at any aquarium.

The garden eels are so timid that they quickly retreat into their burrows at the slightest sign of trouble. But footage captured by a 360-degree video camera at the Sumida Aquarium, which is housed in the Tokyo Skytree Town complex in the capital’s Sumida Ward, allows people to examine their antics up close.

About 600 spotted and splendid garden eels are exhibited in a large water tank.

Reaching 30 to 40 centimeters in length, these eels usually live on the sandy bottoms of the warm oceans surrounding the southern areas of Japan. Because they eat planktonic animals floating along in the water current, the fish all dance in the same direction.

The stuff that can be seen emerging from the black patch under their faces is feces. Some garden eels are so short-sighted that they snap at their own waste, but then immediately realize their mistake and hastily spit it out.

The alert garden eels quickly retreated into their burrows as soon as the video camera was placed on the bottom of the tank. But one adventurous eel came crawling out minutes later, followed by several hundred of its more sheepish pals about 10 minutes later as if nothing had happened.