A diver was able to film a duo of young ocean sunfish off the coast of Canada. Experts think that these fish are five times smaller compared to their adult size.
Two Mini Mola Spotted
The two mini molas were estimated to stretch 24 inches each. According to experts, their small size and angular bellies are clear signs of how young these ocean sunfish are.
Marine biologist Marianne Nyegaard, who specializes in ocean sunfish and serves as a research associate in Auckland Museum, explains that they appear like extremely young Mola Mola fish.
The rare and new footage shows the two sunfish with a school of yellowtail rockfish and widow rockfish. The pair swam away as Timothy Manuelides, the citizen scientist who captured the footage, neared them. The fish waved their anal and dorsal fins like wings as they did so through the sunlit and greenish waters.
The snap shows that sunfish are capable of swimming faster than people think, as these creatures are erroneously believed to swim slowly. Researcher Jackie Hildering, who is also the director for education and communications at the Marine Education and Research Society (MERS), also notes that the perception comes from "sunning behavior" seen from the ocean surface. This phenomenon refers to when sunfish end up basking in warm light after dwelling in cold and deep waters.
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Sunfish: World's Largest Bony Fish
Researchers observed that the fish on the right side had a missing tail chunk. They estimated that the diameter of the fish was 24 inches.
Sunfish, also known as mola based on their scientific name "Mola Mola," are considered the world's largest bony fish and can grow to stretch three full meters in diameter. These juveniles were found to be five times smaller compared to their adult counterparts. However, they are also 240 times bigger compared to newborn sunfish that are just 2.5 millimeters in size.
Little is known regarding the early lives of these species. Their tiny larvae can only be spotted at the species level through DNA sequencing.
Ocean sunfish can be found across various oceans in the world. The majority of them dwell between the surface of the water and a depth of 200 meters. For a long time, these species were believed to be the only Mola species within the northeast Pacific. This was until researchers discovered the hoodwinker sunfish, which was first described in 2017 after specimens appeared on a beach in New Zealand. The new species was also spotted later off the Canadian coast.
The primary indicator that researchers use to distinguish the two species is the tail, or clavus. The ocean sunfish has a frilly edge tail, while the hoodwinker sunfish's tail has a round shape with an indent at the center.
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