A scuba diver was amazed to find himself in the presence of some of the world's most elusive and unusual fish in the world. According to Good News Network, these fish resemble giant heads with fins as they do not have any tails like a character in a fictional story.
But this species is real and rare to see. They are called the ocean sunfish or more commonly called Mola mola. They are capable of impressive speeds for very short distances to avoid their predators, but they usually drift slowly on the current.
Ocean Sunfish or Mola Mola
Various species of sharks, tuna, sea lions, and other large fish prey on the small Mola mola. But when they reach their full size, Mola mola's skin gets thicker, making them difficult to eat.
They forage food at deeper temperatures, which results in them losing a significant amount of body heat. Experts say that this is why they are often seen lying flat on the surface and basking in the Sun. They eat jellyfish, small fish, and a lot of zooplanktons.
They can lay up to 300,000 eggs at one time, which is more than any other fish. Since they are a rare sight for scuba divers, the man in the video below is lucky to be swimming among a group of ocean sunfish around the remote islands of the Galapagos in Ecuador.
According to National Geographic, Mola mola fish developed their unique shape because their back fin never grows. Instead, it folds into itself as the fish matures and creates a rounded rudder called clavus.
They are commonly found in temperate and tropical oceans, where they are sometimes mistaken as sharks because their huge dorsal fins emerge above the water as they bask in the Sun near the water surface. Mola mola fish also have teeth fused into a beak-like structure, but they cannot fully close their small mouths.
Heaviest Bony Fish in the World
Mola mola's odd shape disguises its more impressive feat: its enormous size. According to an article in Cool Green Science, Mola mola is famed as the heaviest bony fish globally and not whales. Unlike Mola mola, whales are not bony fish. More so, skeletons of sharks are made of cartilage, which still makes Mola mola an exceptional bony fish.
Ocean sunfish could grow roughly 8.2 feet by 5.9 feet, although some measure up to 14 feet by 10 feet. The heaviest one ever seen was in 1996, a female Mola mola that weighed a whopping 5,071 pounds that is a size of a full-grown white rhinoceros. A slightly lighter Mola mola was also caught, weighing about 3,500 pounds.
These fish are so big that boats sometimes come off as badly as the poor ocean sunfish when they hit one. An incident in 1998 involving the cement carrier MV Goliath and the bizarre fish was reported when the ship pulled into the Sydney harbor a 1,400-kilogram Mola mola impaled on its bow.
Due to its heavyweight, the fish reduced the boat's speed from 14 to 11 knots, while its rough skin stripped the ship's paint down the metal.
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