I came across these pictures from Fogonazos. Be sure to go over there for a great article about Mola Mola, the giant ocean sunfish, with about 2 dozen more pictures!


Now that's a whole lotta Mola! Read Fogonazos to see why you might not want to eat its flesh though.

Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.





Comments
From the Fogonazos link, "Finally, the flesh of the ocean sunfish contains neurotoxins similar to those of other poisonous tetraodontiformes, but it is considered a delicacy by some people." Have we finally discovered the reason why -- as per the Fish Guys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4smMyPNcA0) -- that they "taste like ass"?
Happy fish Fridays, folks.
Posted by: FishGuyDave | August 15, 2008 4:33 AM
I love one of the German names for the mola: schwimmender Kopf.
I wrote a post on my blog a couple of months ago, about a paper on the daily swimming patterns of mola; there's also a bit about the phylogeny of Molidae.
Posted by: Barn Owl | August 15, 2008 5:32 AM
Link!
Posted by: kevin z | August 15, 2008 7:27 AM
Woo. Have you guys seen this picture of a huge manta ray being trawled and someone is riding it like they were from fantasy story
http://www.ectomo.com/index.php/2008/08/12/trawling-for-giants/
Posted by: Matt | August 15, 2008 11:40 AM
Ooops!
my mola post
Posted by: Barn Owl | August 15, 2008 3:41 PM
When it comes to molas, I look to Tierney Thys. She has this great site at Oceansunfish.org, and has a tracking project going on. I still haven't found any mola mola in Minnesota, but I will call her as soon as I see one.
As far as their body style, I would say that they are the AMC Gremlin of the ocean.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | August 15, 2008 8:41 PM
thats abig fish! You read about the sizes in books, but its not until you see photo with a human for scale you see HOW big
Posted by: Neil | August 21, 2008 2:50 PM