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!
Bali 2008
This October, the mola
team headed East--far East. We enthusiastically accepted an
invitation from marine conservationist Dr. Mark Erdmann to
join Conservation InternationaI, Indonesia and the Indonesian
Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in conducting a Rapid Biological
Assessment (RAP)* for the Nusa Penida area.
read more...
Exploring new ways of non-invasively
investigating molas - August 25, 2008
We're currently exploring whether or not an exciting new technique
for identifying individual whale sharks using NASA methodology
for identifying star patterning can also be applied to mola
populations--particularly those extra-spotted ones. First stop
Galapagos. For more information about this technique see National
Geographic News http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/
080825-whale-sharks-missions_2.html