The Ocean Sunfish - oceansunfish.org
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Welcome! The giant ocean sunfishes, family Molidae, are some of Earth’s most fascinating yet mysterious creatures. These jelly-eating giants hold the record for being the world’s heaviest bony fish and occupy a unique place in the open ocean web of life. This site is dedicated to consolidating our current state of knowledge and announcing our latest research discoveries and those of others as they become available. Be sure to check out the research section and if you have recently published something on mola or produced a film with mola in it please, do let us know--we’d love to add this information to the site. We are also excited to share a new feature that involves you! If you are certain you have seen a mola, please add your sighting to our growing database by clicking here.


We welcome your comments, suggestions, additions, deletions and hope you enjoy the site. Dive in!

Observations on a school of ocean sunfish and evidence
for a symbiotic cleaning association with albatrosses

Albatrosses are superb long-distance fliers that can scour vast tracts of ocean in search of food. But sometimes, food comes to them.
Read more...(Discover Magazine)
Read the paper by Takuzo Abe · Keiko Sekiguchi · Hiroji Onishi ·
Kota Muramatsu · Takehiko Kamito

Mombasa's giant fish puzzles local scientists - February 9, 2011

Mombasa fisherman Masood Rashid is still on top of the world, two days after he caught one of the biggest fish in the Indian Ocean
Read the Standard article

Help Unravel the Mystery of the Ocean Sunfish click here
Seen an ocean sunfish? You can help Dr. Tierney Thys (tierney@mbay.net) and her colleagues by reporting your sighting. Your sightings can help us understand the behaviors and movements of these amazing creatures. Any high quality pictures documenting your sighting are exceptionally helpful for species confirmation.

Sightings Latest Sighting
Date: 11/30/2011 1200 hrs
Location: S 34.296791, E 18.814344
Water Temp: 14 C
Behavior: basking in sun, swam away
 

email info@oceansunfish.org © 2012

About Tierney Thys

Citing this site

Adopt a Sunfish
Adopt a molaI’d like to tell you a story about a very special little girl who inspired the creation of the Adopt a Sunfish. Early in 2007, I was serving as a National Geographic expert on a ... read more

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