Ocean of Hope

10 Interesting Mola Mola Sunfish Facts

Mola
Mola mola, or Ocean Sunfish picture from Wikimedia Commons

10 Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish, Facts: The fish so nice they named it twice!

1. Mola mola are known because of their unusual shape: an upright flattened disk, tapered top and bottom fins between body and tail, and small black eyes halfway between its small pectoral (side) fins and round mouth.

2. Mola Mola Sunfish got their name because they like to lay down on their sides and sun themselves at the surface. They do this to stay warm and to get rid of parasites (seabirds eat those).

3. Mola Mola are related to pufferfish, porcupinefish, and filefish (same Order Tetradontiformes).

4. Mola Mola lack a swim bladder so they swim constantly (or move fins side-to-side to hover).

5.Mola Mola are the largest bony fish in the ocean!
Average length 5.9 ft (1.8m), 8.2 ft (2.5m) fin-to-fin
Max length 10.8 ft (3.3m), 14 ft (4.2m) fin-to-fin
Weight range 545 lbs (247kg) to 5,100 lbs (2,300kg)

6. A single Mola Mola can host up to 40 species of parasites. It gets rid of them by sunning at the surface and having seabirds eat the parasites, or by cleaner fish and other fish eating the parasites at cleaning stations, or by breaching up to 10 ft (3m) out of the water.

7. Ocean Sunfish eat mainly jellies, but also eat salps, squid, crustaceans, small fish, fish larvae and eel grass.

8. Mola Mola can swim to depths down to 2,000 ft (600m).

From Wikipedia http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/fish/molalav.htm
Mola fry: notice the spikes all around it: photo by G. David Johnson


9. Ocean Sunfish can grow to 60 million times their birth size (0.1 in, 2.5mm), a record for vertebrates! As fry (babies that are part of the plankton), sunfish have spines all around their body that they outgrow.

10. Enemies as young include bluefin tuna and mahi mahi, as adults sea lions (who often bite off their fins and play with them), killer whales, sharks and humans (caught to eat or as by-catch).

Also see: 10 Fun Facts About Opah Fish, or Moonfish

See article from: Oceana’s Ocean Sunfish page

What Type of Fish is Dory in Finding Dory?


What type of fish is Dory from the Finding Nemo and Finding Dory movies?

What type of fish is Dory and her parents?

Dory and her parents are Yellow Tail Blue Tangs or Blue Hippo Tangs or Pacific Blue Tangs or Palette Surgeonfish. Her Mom’s name is Jenny and her Dad’s name is Charlie.

What type of fish are Marlin and Nemo?

They are Ocellaris or False Percula Clownfish or Clown Anemonefish.

What kind of sea turtles are Crush and Squirt?

They are Green Sea Turtles, one of 7 species of sea turtles. Green sea turtles were named green for the fat on their body, not the color of their shells or skin.

What kind of ray is Mr. Ray?

He is a Spotted Eagle Ray. Fortunately he’s not the type of Stingray shown migrating in the movie or else he’d be leaving his students behind! There is a specific kind of ray known as the Golden Cownose Ray that may migrate in groups of up to 10,000!

What kind of whale is Bailey?

Bailey is a Beluga Whale. Belugas are often called the “canaries of the sea” because of their vocalizations. Their (squishy) fat-filled melons (heads) are supposed to help with echolocation, the sonar that many whales use in the ocean.

what type of fish is Dory, Finding Dory, Destiny, Dory, Whale Shark
Dory and Destiny the Whale Shark from Finding Dory Photo: © Disney Pixar 2016

What kind of fish is Destiny?

Destiny is a Whale Shark. It’s cute that she and Dory knew each other and can speak whale, but Destiny is a Shark, not a Whale! She’s the largest shark in the ocean, but only eats tiny plankton with her cavernous mouth. Whale Sharks do have poor eyesight because their eyes are so tiny compared to their bodies, but they are not clumsy. Anyone who has snorkeled with Whale Sharks know they can turn on a dime to avoid swimming into you!

What kind of octopus is Hank?

Hank is a generic octopus. Octopuses are masters of camouflage and many can turn orange like Hank. He is actually missing an arm, so he’s a “septopus.” In real life, the octopus would grow any missing arms back. There are so many neurons in a severed octopus arm that it can move and hunt on its own!

What kind of Sea Lions are Rudder and Fluke?

Sea Lions are probably California Sea Lions. I’m guessing they are California Sea Lions because part of the movie takes place off of California. If they were both male, then they could be found off of Pier 39 in San Francisco where bachelor males hang out and entertain tourists.

What kind of Sea Otters are the baby Sea Otters?

The baby Sea Otters are oh so cute! They are probably Southern Sea Otters, mainly found off the California coast. Sea otters don’t stand up on their hind legs like river otters do, and they couldn’t climb up the poles to the freeway! In some press pictures, it looks like there are baby sea otters in a group. There would never be a group of babies together because a wild Sea Otter pup stays with Mom 24/7 and they rarely socialize with other mother/pup pairs. Even surrogate Sea Otter Moms at the Monterey Bay Aquarium only take care of one pup at a time!

What type of bird is Becky?

I speculate Becky is a Pacific Loon. Loons may mate for life! They eat mainly fish, crustaceans, and insects.

I loved seeing Finding Dory and here is my review!

For more images of the movie visit Finding Dory Images at collider.com
or
side-by-side (Finding Dory image vs. real animal images) at Mother Nature Network’s Meet the Real Animals Behind Finding Dory

Click here for The Real Fish of Finding Nemo
Click here for The Real Fish (and Sharks!) of Finding Nemo Part 2

Sex in the Sea: Uncovering the Mating Behavior of the Giant Sea Bass

Sea Bass
The Giant Sea Bass: photo by Orange County Register

Brian Clark is a graduate student at California State University Northridge. He is currently crowdfunding his research project “Sex in the Sea: Uncovering the Mating Behavior of the Giant Sea Bass” Here is more from Brian (aka JR) Clark:

The GIANT SEA BASS, Stereolepis gigas, is the big and beautiful goliath of the eastern Pacific. This is a fish that is not only important to its ecosystem, but has been seen as a trophy to fisherman up and down the California coast. Over the years they have been fished to almost extinction and no one was ever able to do scientific research on them. Recently, they have started being spotted in southern California so I thought it would be the perfect time to finally learn a little something about GIANTS. I’m part of Dr. Larry Allen’s Ichthyology lab at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) but we have picked up the nickname as the “Giant Sea Bass Lab.” We are trying to get a well-rounded view on the basic biology and increase the conservation efforts for this endangered fish.

I am looking into the reproductive behavior of this fish and I believe that this study is critical to their preservation. This study will be the first to look at the behavioral aspects and strategies for the fishes within their family, Polyprionidae. Giant sea bass are thought to breed in shallow waters where other species in their family are thought to spawn at extreme depths, making observations not feasible. If you are interested, you can learn more and donate to research here: experiment.com/savethegiants

JR Clark
Brian Clark

A little about myself, I grew up living close to the beach and couldn’t get enough of it. I was always in the water but never really knew what was going on beneath the surface. In school we were only taught about the “beautiful” tropical fishes and never really learned about the beauty of the temperate water fishes, but it was something I was always curious about. So I decided to dedicate my time to studying the temperate waters of California. I started my career as a Marine Biologist at San Francisco State University. While I was there I worked in an evolutionary development lab that focused on fish where I found out that genetic work is not the life for me. I was then given the opportunity to do some research out on Catalina Island and studied dominance behavior of leopard sharks, Triakis semifasciata. It was an awesome project and during the study I realized that I wanted to do observational research on marine organisms, mainly fishes and sharks. Currently, I am a graduate student at CSUN and am extremely excited to be studying Giant sea bass behavior.

As a grad student I don’t have much free time, so when I can, I like to spend the afternoon playing disc golf or just bumming around at the beach. I also recently moved to the Valley and I have made it a mission of mine to try every taqueria in the area (there’s about 10 within a mile of my house). Tacos here are cheap and really really good, so it’s been a fun adventure that my friends and I can partake in!

The Fastest, Heaviest, Largest, Longest, & Oldest Ocean Animals

oarfish Smithsonian
The longest fish in the ocean: Oarfish photo of oarfish model taken at Smithsonian Institution

Now that the Winter Olympics are over, I thought I’d list some record-breaking ocean animals:

1. The fastest fish in the ocean is a sailfish clocked at 68.18 mph (miles per hour)or 109.73 kph (kilometers per hour).

2. The fastest shark is a mako shark measured at 60 mph (96.56 kph).

3. The heaviest bony fish is a Mola mola (ocean sunfish) that was 10 feet long and weighed 4,928 pounds.

4. The largest fish is a whale shark that was 41.5 feet long (12.6 meters) and weighed 66,000 pounds (21.5 metric tons).

5. The largest, heaviest, and longest ocean animal is a blue whale female measured at 109 feet 3.5 inches(33.27 meters) and 190 tons.

6. The longest fish is an oarfish that was 56 feet long (17 meters)

7. The longest colony (of more than one animal) of animals is a siphonophore (similar to a jellyfish) named Praya dubia that is 100-160 feet long (30-50 meters)

8. The oldest ocean animal was an ocean quahog clam named Ming who was 507 years old.

9. The oldest mammal is a bowhead whale estimated to be at least 211 years old.

10. The deepest swimming air-breathing animal is a sperm whale, which can dive to depths of 9800 feet (3 kilometers)

Some facts based on Biggest, Smallest, Fastest, and Deepest marine animals

Lionfish: An Introduced Species Gone Awry

lionfish: introduced species gone awry
Lionfish: Public Enemy #1? Photo by Cherilyn Jose

From Lionfish POV: Psst, humans. First they capture lionfish for their home aquariums and we are considered deadly beauties. Then a few aquarists let us go (accidentally or on purpose) in the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans and poof! We have become the scourge of the oceans. That is because we reproduce prolifically and can eat anything that fits in our mouths. Lionfish hunts are regularly held, and some humans have even tried to condition wild sharks to eat us. That saddens me because we haven’t done anything other than what our biology tells us, and now we are public enemy #1 in the oceans.

From Human POV: Lionfish hail from the Western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, but in the last 20 years have literally taken over the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans. The main reason why is because humans have overfished the natural predators, such as grouper, of the lionfish.

Introduced species have been studied intensively throughout the terrestrial world, and especially on islands where the invasive species are more apparent. In the ocean however, it is much harder to study introduced species due to fact that there are no real boundaries there.

The main tactic to reduce the unnatural lionfish population has been to kill them. Dr. Sylvia Earle, known as “Her Deepness” for her pioneering Jacques Cousteau type exploration and passion, says of that, “Kill kill kill…is not the solution, Lionfish have replaced a void created by the loss of apex predators, the best way to protect the ocean reefs is to create more Marine Protected Areas (MPA) to bring back healthy numbers of predators, that will in turn bring balance back to the reef.”

Creating Marine Protected Areas has been shown to increase fish that are fished in the areas surrounding the MPAs, so MPAs are really a win win situation both for humans and ocean denizens.

Author’s note: The Lionfish is one of my favorite fish to take care of in aquariums. I always stayed clear of their venomous spines, and they were quite fun to feed. They have the potential to eat until they burst, but there is something very satisfying about feeding an animal. In the lionfish’s case, feeding them until I hoped they were satiated. The particular tank I used to take care of also had a porcupine pufferfish, which is another favorite aquarium fish of mine. Porcupinefish are truly the “dogs of the ocean.”