Strong. Acrobatic. Agile. That describes the newest shark swimming at the Minnesota Zoo – and the celebrated local Olympian she is named for. Look who’s new in the nursery in Discovery Bay: Suni the zebra shark! She was born August 17, 2024, soon after we all cheered for gymnast Sunisa “Suni” Lee at the Summer Olympics.

When Zoo aquarists find shark eggs in the Tropical Reef habitat on the Tropics Trail, they bring them to a hatching area behind the scenes. Some of the eggs are “wind eggs,” the term for an empty egg case. By shining a light through egg cases – or even ultrasounding them – aquarists identify those with embryos inside. They monitor them for 6 – 8 months, until the newborn pup emerges, fully ready to swim, eat, and explore on their own.

Suni’s mom is Ruby, the only breeding female at the Zoo, who is also the mother of 7-year-old female JZ. Unlike aquatic mammals like dolphins, shark moms do not care for or raise their young.

Zebra sharks are an endangered species due to overhunting for their fins and habitat degradation. To help save them in the wild, the Minnesota Zoo is a proud partner of AZA SAFE Shark and Ray. Part of that critical work is ReShark, which sends eggs and pups from zoos and aquariums to Indonesia to be released into the wild. Our adult female is a genetic match for this program, and we hope to provide viable eggs in the future.

The stripes on zebra shark pup “Suni” will transition to the spotted pattern of an adult by the time she’s age 1.

Suni makes her home in the shark nursery in Discovery Bay, where she may be exploring her environment or lying still. That’s normal. You may have heard that sharks must keep swimming to breathe but zebra sharks can rest motionless on the bottom and use throat muscles to pump water across their gills. Suni is patterned like a zebra but those stripes aren’t forever! By the time she’s one, her stripes will be replaced by spots.