Tag: sunfish

Divers encounter one of the ‘weirdest creatures in the ocean’

A dive company in Mexico on Tuesday shared footage showing clients swimming with a large sunfish that was alien-like in appearance.

A company that specializes in shark encounters off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, shared footage Tuesday showing a large Mola mola swimming with divers.

“One of the weirdest creatures in the ocean, THE MOLA MOLA,” Cabo Shark Dive suggested via Instagram. “We often see Mola molas during our ocean safaris, and they are super COOL and friendly!”

Mola molas (ocean sunfish) are the largest bony fish on the planet and can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.

The docile creatures pose little threat to divers, however, as they roam pelagic currents slurping sea jellies, crustaceans, small fish and algae.

They’re most famous for their alien-like appearance, with truncated bodies that are smooth and flat on both sides, and large eyes.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium website describes the Mola mola as a fish that “looks like the invention of a mad scientist.”

–Footage courtesy of Jacob Brunetti/Cabo Shark Dive.

Oklahoma teen lands massive sunfish, breaks 50-year-old record

A 16-year-old from Cheyenne, Oklahoma, has landed a massive redear sunfish to shatter a state record that had stood for 50 years.

Oklahomans who aspire to catch a record-size sunfish might want to visit their nearest farm pond.

Cord Smith, a 16-year-old from Cheyenne, is the new record holder after reeling a 2-pound, 5.6-ounce sunfish on from a one-acre pond in Roger Mills County.

His April 10 catch shatters the previous state record, 2 pounds, 1.25 ounces, established at a different farm pond in 1973.

RELATED: Light-tackle angler lands massive ‘freak of nature’ sunfish

According to Field & Stream, Smith was casting plastic lures after school with classmate Jacob Suarez when the massive sunfish struck.

Cord Smith (left) and Jacob Suarez pose with record sunfish. Photo: ODWC

Both anglers realized they might have netted a state record sunfish, so they kept the fish alive in a bucket until they could have it weighed on a certified scale at a Cheyenne market.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation certified the record on April 25, stating on Facebook: “Well done young man!”

The catch was a surprise because redear sunfish, also called shellcrackers, typically favor natural baits.

For comparison, the world record for redear sunfish is 6 pounds 4 ounces. That catch occurred May 4, 2021, at Lake Havasu, Arizona.

450-pound sunfish discovered on N.C. beach; scientists overjoyed

A massive alien-like sunfish was discovered Wednesday on a North Carolina beach and was so heavy that scientists required a horse scale to obtain its weight.

A massive alien-like sunfish was found Wednesday on a North Carolina beach and the carcass was so heavy that scientists required a horse scale to obtain its weight.

The sharptail mola, similar in appearance to the more common Mola mola (ocean sunfish), weighed 450 pounds and is being kept at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Lily Hughes, Curator of Ichthyology at the museum, tweeted about the rare discovery Saturday.

“Fishmas came early to the Natural Sciences Ichthyology Unit this year!” Hughes boasted. “We are adding this beautiful 450 pound sharptail mola to our collection!”

 

The fish washed ashore at North Topsail Beach and, Hughes noted, “It has been pure chaos getting it to Raleigh, but we’re so glad it’s here!”

RELATED: ‘Stunned’ researchers rescue 4,000-pound sunfish from net

Hughes thanked the citizens of North Topsail Beach for their help in collecting the specimen, and the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University for allowing the use of its horse scale.

Sharptail mola (Masturus lanceolatus), also referred to as sharptail sunfish, are found globally in tropical and temperate waters. But they’re rarely encountered and little is known about their biology or life history.

The oddly shaped fish can weigh more than 4,000 pounds.

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Watch: Researcher wades out to greet rare, alien-like sunfish

A whale researcher in British Columbia, Canada, last week experienced an extraordinary encounter with a rare and enormous sunfish that appeared outside his home.

A whale researcher in British Columbia, Canada, last week experienced a “once-in-a-lifetime” encounter with a rare and enormous sunfish that he spotted from his home.

Jared Towers, who lives on Cormorant Island, waded into the water with what was later identified as a hoodwinker sunfish swimming just yards from shore.

“I can’t believe this just happened!” Towers wrote Oct. 25 on Facebook. “I’ve seen many sunfish (Mola) offshore over the years but never so close to home or this close up. Also, it turns out this is a Hoodwinker Sunfish (Mola tecta), a species only recently discovered.”

The hoodwinker sunfish was first identified as a species in 2017. They were subsequently believed to inhabit only subtropical and temperate waters in the Southern Hemisphere.

In 2019, however, a hoodwinker sunfish washed ashore near Santa Barbara, marking the first documentation of the species in the Northern Hemisphere.

RELATED: ‘Stunned’ researchers rescue 4,000-pound sunfish from net 

Towers told the Times Colonist that after spotting the sunfish he waded out to spend several “surreal” minutes with a gentle giant that weighed perhaps 400 pounds, measuring 7 feet wide and 10 feet across.

“It had these big beautiful eyes and it was looking me over up and down,” Towers said. “I’m used to having large mammals watching and having this inquisitiveness, but I never expected this out of a fish processing information about me.”

The most prevalent sunfish in the Northern Hemisphere is the Mola mola, which can weigh more than 5,000 pounds.

Alien-like in appearance, with truncated bodies, small mouths and large eyes, ocean sunfish are docile creatures that prey on sea jellies, squid, and other gelatinous zooplankton.

The sunfish encountered by Towers – it eventually swam away – was identified as a hoodwinker sunfish by Jackie Hindering of the Marine Education and Research Society in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.

She told the Times Colonist that warming waters might in the Pacific be responsible for more sunfish appearing off British Columbia.

Hoodwinker sunfish might easily be misidentified as Mola molas. But they boast subtly different features, including a rounder head shape and smaller tail size.

Watch: Massive ‘alien’ fish gets helping hand from boat crew

Renowned big-wave surfer and freediver Mark Healey has shared video showing him using a brush to remove parasites from a Mola mola, or ocean sunfish.

Renowned big-wave surfer and freediver Mark Healey has shared video showing him using a brush to remove parasites from a Mola mola, or ocean sunfish.

“It kept coming back for more and could’ve probably done it all day,” Healey said via Instagram. “Those parasites are pretty buried in there, but I think I made a little headway with the boat brush.”

In the footage, under the title, “Healey’s Thai Massage,” one of the crew describes the ghostly white, oddly shaped sunfish as “an alien.”

Ocean sunfish are the world’s heaviest bony fish and can weigh up to 5,000 pounds. Their massive bodies are flat and their tail sections are truncated. The gentle giants roam tropical and temperate oceans preying on items such as jellies, squid, and algae.

RELATED: Rare whale shark photographed by pilot off Southern California

Healey stated that surfacing molas will sometimes turn on their sides to allow gulls to remove their parasites.

Among the Instagram comments was this from fellow wave rider Michael Stewart: “It’s a cool moment when human and non-human earthlings connect.”

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Light-tackle angler lands massive ‘freak of nature’ sunfish

Zac Mickle has a knack for catching large redear sunfish at Arizona’s Lake Havasu, but during a recent outing Mickle landed a redear so massive and plump that he described the fish as “a freak of nature.”

Zac Mickle has a knack for catching huge redear sunfish at Arizona’s Lake Havasu, but during a recent outing Mickle landed a redear so massive and plump that he described the fish as “a freak of nature.”

The egg-laden sunfish measured 16-1/4 inches and weighed 5.07 pounds. On Facebook Mickle boasted, “By far the greatest fish I have ever caught.”

The average redear sunfish weighs about a pound, perhaps a tad heavier in some fisheries. Much larger redear sunfish have been caught, but catches exceeding 5 pounds are extremely rare.

Zac Mickle with 5.07-pound sunfish. Photo: Stephanie O’Loughlin

The International Game Fish Assn. lists as the all-tackle world record a 6-pound, 4-ounce redear sunfish caught at Havasu last May. The catch, by Thomas Farchione, is also the Arizona state record.

ALSO: Breaching humpback whale lands on boat in harrowing encounter caught on video

Mickle told FTW Outdoors that he was fishing near submerged timber with 4-pound-test line and a piece of nightcrawler as bait when the enormous redear struck.

Zac Mickle’s 5.07-pound redear sunfish atop in ice chest.

“I casted to the timber and let it drop to the bottom,” he recalled. “Seconds later I felt just a couple little taps on my line, which is exactly how these fish hit. You never know if it’s 4 inches or 5 pounds. I set the hook with my ultralight rod and the fish didn’t move. I knew it was big! I just didn’t know how big.

“She stayed deep for a long time not really doing much. With only 4-pound test I couldn’t do much. They usually go for runs but I think she was just so round that she couldn’t do that.

“When I finally started lifting her off bottom I saw that she was giant. I ran to the back of the boat to grab the net and luckily she went right in. This is when I could finally see exactly how big it was and I freaked out!”

Mickle said that while he releases most of the fish he catches, he kept the giant redear sunfish in order to have an exact replica made.

–Images courtesy of Stephanie O’Loughlin

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Paddlers spot huge sunfish; looks like something a mad scientist created

On calm waters off Southern California, two paddleboarders came across a massive sunfish known as a mola mola, an odd-looking sea creature.

On calm waters off Southern California, two paddleboarders came across a massive sunfish known as a mola mola, described by one marine biologist as something a mad scientist put together with spare parts.

“It’s such an oddball kind of assembly of parts,” Julianne Steers, a marine biologist and founding board member of the Beach Ecology Coalition, explained further to the Orange County Register.

Rich German and Matt Wheaton were paddling off their hometown of Laguna Beach on Thursday when they encountered the odd-looking sea creature.

“We were just paddling and all of a sudden we were like ‘Oh my God,’” German told the OC Register. “That thing was massive. Most of my encounters are with dolphins and whales, but you never know what you’re going to see.”

German compared the length of the mola mola to Wheaton’s 14-foot stand-up paddleboard and estimated its length at close to 9 feet.

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Later, German looked up the record for a mola mola and claimed it to be 8 feet, 11 inches with a weight of 5,070 pounds, as reported by Guinness World Records. But Guinness also reported that that fish was later disproven as a mola mola by a scientific study.

However, Guinness also stated that a mola mola was found floating off Whangarei Heads in New Zealand in 2006 that stretched 10 feet, 9.9 inches with an estimated weight of 4,850 to 5,070 pounds.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Twilight Zone sea creature washed ashore after sonic boom

Steers told the OC Register that the one spotted by German and Wheaton was bigger than most seen in area waters, saying she’s seen them up to 7-feet long, but she wouldn’t call it a record.

“The only true way to know is if it was out and weighed and officially measured,” she told the OC Register. “But it does look much larger than what we typically see out here.”

German stated on Facebook it was the largest sunfish they’ve seen.

“I just know it was really big,” he told the OC Register. “It was a unique and very cool thing to experience, and another example of why we need to protect the ocean and the amazing life that calls it home.”

Photos courtesy of Rich German.

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Watch: Enormous sea creature hoisted from sea via crane

Rare footage shows an estimated 4,000-pound sunfish being hoisted aboard a vessel via crane during a successful entanglement rescue.

Rare footage captured off Africa’s north coast shows an estimated 4,000-pound sunfish, or moonfish, being hoisted aboard a vessel during a successful entanglement rescue.

The sunfish, believed to be a Mola alexandrini, became trapped in a net used to catch tuna off Cueta, a Spanish enclave in Africa.  The footage was captured on October 4.

A crew from a marine biology lab run by the University of Seville participated in the rescue. The footage shows the massive sunfish being hoisted by a crane and swimming after it was set free.

Click on this link for more on this story and to view images captured by the rescue crew.

‘Stunned’ researchers rescue 4,000-pound sunfish from net

A sunfish estimated to weigh more than 4,000 pounds – it was too heavy for the scale – has been rescued from a fishing net off the Spanish enclave of Cueta. The colossal sunfish, believed to be of record size for the region, was pulled from the …

A sunfish estimated to weigh more than 4,000 pounds – it was too heavy for the scale – has been rescued from a fishing net off the Spanish enclave of Cueta.

The colossal sunfish, believed to be of record size for the region, was pulled from the water with cranes and briefly studied before it was set free (see video below).

According to the Estrecho Marine Biology Station of the University of Seville, the entangled sunfish was discovered off Cueta, on the north coast of Africa, on Oct. 4.

 

“We tried to put it on the 1,000-kg (2,204.6-pound) scale but it was too heavy. It would’ve broken it,” the station’s Enrique Ostale told Reuters. “Based off its corpulence and compared with other catches, it must’ve weighed around 2 tonnes (4,409 pounds).”

ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Mystery surrounds rare crocodile discovery on Baja California beach

Two cranes on different vessels were used to hoist the sunfish, according to the university. The fish measured 10.5 feet and was nearly as wide between its fins. (Sunfish have truncated bodies, giving them an unusual appearance.)

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DNA samples were collected but the fish is believed to be a Mola alexandrine, or southern sunfish. They’re closely related to the more widespread Mola mola. Both species are docile and prey mostly on sea jellies.

“I was stunned,” Ostale told Reuters. “We’d read about such individuals, but never thought we’d actually touch one that day.

“But it was also stressful: you’re on a boat in the middle of the water, there’s a crane moving huge weight, a live animal. We couldn’t waste a moment and had to avoid accidents.”

Cueta is one of nine Spanish territories in Africa. It borders Morocco along the boundary of the Mediterranean and Atlantic.

–Images courtesy of the Estrecho Marine Biology Station/University of Seville

Massive sunfish catch still a ‘pending’ world record, IGFA says

The International Game Fish Assn. confirmed Friday that it’s reviewing a May 4 catch of a massive redder sunfish as a potential world record.

The International Game Fish Assn. confirmed Friday that it’s reviewing a May 4 catch of a massive redear sunfish as a potential world record.

“You may have seen this fish circulating the Internet in the past few weeks,” the IGFA stated on Facebook. “The IGFA recently received the application from Thomas Farchione for this enormous 2.83-kilogram (6-pound, 4-ounce) redear sunfish.

“This fish would potentially set the IGFA All-Tackle Record for the species and was caught out of the same lake in Arizona (Havasu) as the previous record.”

Lake Havasu is a reservoir on the Colorado River along the Arizona-California border.

Farchione, of Waterford, Wis., used a nightcrawler to entice the slab-like sunfish onto his hook. He was fishing in California Bay in 25 feet of water.

RELATED: Woman lands record cutthroat trout – ‘I’m in the books boys!’

Since then his catch has been described as a pending world record. The IGFA on Friday explained that the approval process is “still under review.”

The current record – 5 pounds, 12 ounces – was set in February 2014 by Hector Brito.

Redear sunfish are native to Gulf states from Texas to Florida, north to Indiana and North Carolina. But their range has been expanded considerably in the U.S., thanks to introductions.

The fish are prized by light-line anglers for their fighting ability and as table fare.