I was scrolling through my e-mail this morning and up pops a close encounter with a sunfish. See this video for yourself.
That above video of a woman diver being investigated by a sunfish was taken by Luis Miguel Gutierrez Bringas off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in late March.
Sunfish reside in open waters across the globe in tropical and temperate oceans and feed on mainly jellies and other gelatinous zooplankton like salps, squid, fish, crustaceans and algae.
Two years ago, Daniel Botelho stumbled across a sunfish--mola mola, capable of getting up to 5000 pounds--while on a mission to photograph blue whales off San Diego.
From Master Liveaboards, everything you should know about the sunfish:
- To the right is a sunfish fry (baby), 3/32 inch long. Note how the sharp outer edges protect it.
- Usually some shade of gray with white polka dots or darker large blotches, they will change color if stressed or attacked.
Fish in the ocean emerged 500 million years ago. The mola mola perhaps 50 million years ago, but probably closer to 25 million. However, here is the Leedsichthys problematicus from perhaps 165 million years ago that grew to 54 feet and 100,000 pounds, double the size of a whale shark today.- Come from the order Tetraodontiformes, which also includes the pufferfish. The sunfish you catch in a lake is not related.
- Many other names.
- Ocean sunfish
- Moonfish (right---but is usually a different species in many countries)
- Cut-short fish in the Philippines
- Drinker fish in Portugal
- Kisser fish in Spain
- Parents’ fish in Hawaii (news to me)
- Lump-fish in Norway
- Propeller in Greece
- Toppled-car fish in Taiwan
- Found in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
.jpg)
- They bask in the sun with the disk facing up.
- Usually found alone.
.jpg)
- Little is known about conception, but a female can possess a hundred million eggs.
- There was a Mola mola in captivity at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, lived in a million-gallon tank, but grew to 800 pounds in 14 months and was released into the bay.
The heaviest ocean sunfish.- Japan: Caught in 1996, a Mola alexandrini was 8.9 feet long and weighed 5071 pounds.
- Another Ma (right) found off the coast of Faial Island, Azores, Portugal in 2021 was 12 feet tall, 11 feet long and weighed 6049 pounds, the record.
- One from Australia was struck by a boat in 1908 and weighed "only" 4927 pounds, but measured 10 feet from snout to tail fin, and 14 feet from dorsal fin to anal fin tip (below).
- This one washed ashore in Australia.
- No one knows how long they live, but the guess is around 20 years.
- One common sunfish can have 40 species of parasites residing on their skin and internally. That video above taken in Galapagos waters saw one of of them cleaning itself by brushing against kelp. Basking in the sun also allows seabirds to feed on the parasites. Another method is by breaching out of the ocean as high as 10 feet to dislodge the parasites.
- They are preyed upon by orcas, sharks and sea lions...and humans. They are delicacies in Taiwan and Japan. They are thus on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
According to Wikipedia:
They are more of a problem to boaters than to swimmers, as they can pose a hazard to watercraft due to their large size and weight. Collisions with sunfish are common in some parts of the world and can cause damage to the hull of a boat,[54] or to the propellers of larger ships, as well as to the fish.[33]
I certainly had such an experience once. Well, indirectly, at least. It was 1972. I had just got my PhD from LSU, and my wife and I, with her parents, began driving back to the West Coast via Panama City, Florida. We noticed party boats advertising red snapper to catch. So we made a reservation go on one the next day. But that day, a sunfish sunk one of those boats. They are quite large, as you can see to the left. The red snappers we caught were about a foot long. More recent photo of a typical catch.
-
Comments
Post a Comment