Holy mola! Check out video of ocean sunfish spotted off Hampton Beach

My first view of an ocean sunfish was on a wall at a natural history museum during my freshman year in college. At first glance, I thought that someone had displayed half of a fish. The tail was missing! On closer inspection, I realized that it was the whole fish. I was looking at one of the largest and strangest fish I had ever seen. I never expected to see one of these animals in the wild, but when I did, it was even more astounding.

Ocean sunfish, or Mola mola, are the heaviest of the bony fishes. They are normally between 3 to 5 feet in length and weigh 175 to 500 pounds. According to "Fishes of the Gulf of Maine" by Bigelow and Schroeder, an ocean sunfish was on display in London in 1883 that measured 8 feet in length and 11 feet from the end of the dorsal fin to the end of the anal fin. I will say that I have had many reports from fishermen about sunfish that are much larger than the reported average.

Last week, while fishing on the Ellen Diane Too, Ryan Cuprewich captured a video of an ocean sunfish cruising a couple of miles an hour off the Hampton Beach coast. It appeared to be about 6 feet long and between 800 to 1000 pounds.

In my first encounter with an ocean sunfish, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Their dorsal fin is large, pointed, and flops around on top of the water like a limp shark fin. They appear to be made of a black, rubbery material with no noticeable scales. Sunfish have a tiny, pointed mouth and a huge, rounded head, but the strangest part of this fish is its lack of a normal tailfin. They look like a huge fish that has had its back end hacked off. Their gill slit is tiny, as are their pectoral fins. Their dorsal and anal fins are huge and are used to swim by flapping back and forth. It amazes me that they can swim at all. It appears that they use their flattened, stubby tail as a rudder, allowing them to swim against the current.

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Most modern literature states that ocean sunfish are only occasional visitors to the Gulf of Maine and are extremely sluggish here. I would disagree with this.

I have had reports from fishermen of sightings from the end of June through October. I can personally attest that they are not in the least sluggish. We have seen them moving steadily while feeding on ctenophores (comb jellies), jellyfish, salps (tunicates, which are filter-feeding plankton), and other soft-bodied animals along the beaches of New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

One day, while fishing for groundfish on his dragger, my husband and his crew witnessed an astonishing display from two Mola mola. It was unusual to see more than one ocean sunfish, but they spotted two swimming together. The fish didn’t appear to be eating and were behaving oddly, interacting with each other. The astonished crew witnessed an incredible sight: the sunfish blasted out of the water, straight up about 5 feet, landing with a belly flop that caused a huge wave.

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The fish each took turns doing this for about 10 minutes and then laid motionless on the surface as if they had died! At first, they thought the fish might be trying to rid themselves of parasites, but after quite a while of observing them, it appeared they may be conducting some form of mating ritual.

Very little is known about sunfish reproduction except that the females have 3 million eggs, more than almost any other bony fish. The larval stages have just recently been found and photographed. The young are equally strange looking with huge spines protruding all around their body like a star. These spines are absorbed by the skin carapace, which develops in the adult fish. As larval fish, they have a somewhat normal tail that is absorbed as they mature. It is a mystery where they lay eggs or even where they hatch. Scientists believe they prefer temperatures of 50 degrees or warmer and become lethargic and even hypothermic when in colder water for extended periods.

Nothing prays on the Mola mola. Their skin is thick and rubbery, and the meat is equally soft and rubbery. They must be doing something right, as they have been on Earth in the fossil record for 50 million years and don’t seem to have evolved much. This proves the old saying, if you have something that works, why change it?

Ellen Goethel is a marine biologist and the owner of Explore the Ocean World at 367 Ocean Blvd. at Hampton Beach.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Holy mola! Meet the 'largest and strangest' sunfish in the ocean