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I don’t know what it is about zoos and aquariums in China, but they just insist on trying to host fake animals. I mean, earlier this year we had some Chow Chows cosplaying as pandas, and now we’ve got an aquarium that has gotten caught red-handed trying to pass a robotic whale shark off as the real deal.

According to The Independent, Xiaomeisha Sea World in Shenzhen, China, was shut down for 5 years for some serious renovations, and when it reopened earlier this month around 100,000 people paid around $40.

One of the big exhibits featured a whale shark. Not quite a whale, not quite a shark, but all great.

Unfortunately, this whale shark was just as real as the one that swallowed Quint at the end of Jaws, which is to say it was a robot.

According to The New York Post, the realization that the aquarium’s shark was not authentic landed the aquarium all kinds of criticism.

The Independent reports that the reason the aquarium went with the robo-whale shark (which sounds like it would make a killer SyFy Network movie) was because of a 2019 ban on the trade of whale sharks. The aquarium also said that it was never its intent to “catfish” aquarium goers.

However… wouldn’t it be kind of cool to see a giant robo-whale shark? I think so. Do you realize how big a whale shark is? They’re the biggest fish in the world! Therefore, a robotic one has to be huge. 

I mean, sure, I wouldn’t want to be tricked into thinking I was going to see a real, genuine whale shark, but I feel like I’d still leave there like, “That giant whale shark robot was pretty kickass, huh?”

I’d go check that out if an aquarium near me had a robotwhale shark. Sure, it’d be a little weird when it starts leaking hydraulic fluid all over the place, but it’d still be cool to see a robot that huge.