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.
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Marine biologist Tierney Thys asks the audience to step into the open ocean, for a visit to the world of the Mola mola, or giant ocean sunfish. Basking, eating jellyfish, and getting massages, this behemoth offers clues to life in the open ocean -- which accounts for 90 percent of the living space…
There are 26 new articles published last night and 12 new articles published today in PLoS ONE. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Sexual…
"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." -Isaac Newton
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the…
Every summer, great white pelicans make their way to Colorado to fish for trout in stocked reservoirs. I've always been fascinated by the fact that these giant sea birds come to Colorado, so far from an ocean. They don't breed here, they don't over winter here; they just hang out and eat. Awhile…
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.
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.
Link!
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/
Ooops!
my mola post
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.
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
I don't think you'll be finding many Molas in MN. :p
I saw a sunfish about 7 years ago on a whale watching trip. It was not as big as the one shown in the pictures above, but it came right up to the boat and I saw that it was big. I never saw or heard of one before, it was very interesting. The man driving the boat told me it was a shark, which scared me because all I saw was a fin.