Hong Kong  - China is planning to present Hong Kong with a collection of endangered giant salamanders - despite the recent death of three rare sturgeon given to Hong Kong as gifts to mark the Olympic Games, a news report said Thursday.

A yet unknown number of the salamanders are to be offered to the city's Ocean Park recreation park as a way of increasing public awareness of the rare amphibian.

A report in the South China Morning Post said the gift had been approved by China's Ministry of Agriculture which had stressed it was not related to the recent deaths of the rare sturgeon.

The Chinese salamander is an endangered species that dates back to the age of the dinosaurs. It is the largest known living amphibian and can grow up to 180 centimetres.

The gift comes just weeks after the latest of three deaths among ten sturgeon given to Hong Kong last summer to mark the Beijing hosting of the Olympic Games 2008.

One of the fish was savaged by a barracuda, one died of a bacterial infection and the third died from a wound injury.

Last week Ocean Park returned a further two sturgeon to a mainland Chinese fisheries research institute for treatment after they fell sick - leaving only five of the original ten still at the park.

The incident has been acutely embarrassing to Hong Kong and resulted in its leader Donald Tsang making a grovelling public apology to China.

Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years as a British colony. The city of 6.9 million hosted the equestrian events of the Beijing Olympics for which the sturgeon was a mascot. (dpa)