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, 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.
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.
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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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