Sun fish is the second name. Sunfish - an amazing sea creature from the Guinness Book

The sunfish is the largest living bony fish. Despite its impressive size and inactivity, this fish is not a commercial species, and it has almost no enemies. Why? We’ll find out the answers to these and many other questions today in the “best of” section..

The sunfish (lat. mola-mola) is one of the most amazing sea creatures. Its Latin name translates as “millstone”, which is quite consistent with the size and shape of this fish, which resembles a huge disk, flattened on the sides. The back of the body seems to be chopped off and ends with a wavy edge, which is a modified fixed caudal fin.

It is the absence of a tail that makes the fish so slow. The dorsal and anal fins are narrow and high, opposing each other and set far back. The head ends with a very small mouth in the shape of a parrot's beak. Jaws without teeth. The teeth are replaced by a solid enamel plate. The skin of the moon fish is covered with small bony tubercles. The skin is unusually thick, durable and elastic - they say that even the skin of a ship cannot withstand this and the paint peels off. The color of the moon fish is dark gray or brown, with light spots of irregular shape and different sizes.

Moon Pisces prefers to be alone, but sometimes they are seen in pairs. Despite the fact that even large moonfish cannot cause any harm to humans, in some places off the coast of South Africa, fishermen experience superstitious fear when meeting this fish, considering it a harbinger of trouble, and hastily return to the shore. This is apparently explained by the fact that the “moon” approaches the shores only before bad weather, and fishermen associate its appearance with an approaching storm.

Sunfish are found in tropical and temperate waters. Spawns in the tropical waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. In the North Atlantic, sunfish can be found off the coast of Newfoundland, Iceland, Great Britain, in the western part of the Baltic Sea and along the coasts of Norway and the Kola Peninsula. The sunfish can often be seen lying on its side on the surface of the water.

In our Far Eastern waters, it is occasionally found in summer in the northern part of the Sea of ​​Japan and in the area of ​​the southern islands of the Great Kuril Ridge.

The sunfish also claims to be the most prolific fish: one female can lay up to 300 million eggs, the size of each egg is about 1 mm. If you put all the eggs in a row, you can get a chain 300 kilometers long. When born, the baby moon fish is 60 million times smaller than the volume of its mother. The fry have a peculiar appearance: they are decorated with long spines, which subsequently disappear.

Alfred Bram wrote: “When irritated, the moonfish grunts like a pig; some claim that the moonfish glows in water, although others deny this. The meat of this fish is very tasteless, similar to glue, with a disgusting smell; If you boil it, you can use it as glue.”

The mola mola feeds primarily on plankton. The sunfish is limited to sucking up prey that swims past within its reach: shrimp, larvae, clams, jellyfish or fry.

The sunfish has almost no natural enemies - there are few predators capable of biting through such a skin. But neither the exotic appearance of the goggle-eyed “floating millstone” nor its large size saves the sunfish from rare attacks by ferocious sea predators – sharks. In Californian waters, the latter stage bloody massacres - they try to bite off the fins of the sunfish, after which it becomes completely helpless and dies on the ocean floor. Unfortunately, humans also pose a serious threat to this marine life. In some East Asian countries, where sunfish, despite its foul-smelling meat, is considered a delicacy, it is specially caught. The sunfish cannot live in captivity and dies even under the most seemingly ideal conditions.

compiler: Alena Andreeva, Photo: lumbricus.livejournal.com

Moon fish are amazing and little-studied creatures, striking in their size, appearance and colossal fertility. They belong to a tiny family of only three species: the common sunfish, the sharp-tailed moonfish and the sunfish. This family belongs to the order Pufferfish and is related to species such as triggerfish, puffer fish and pufferfish.

Common sunfish (Mola mola).

The moon fish owes its name to its unusual body shape. In the most famous ordinary moonfish it is almost round; in the ransania and sharp-tailed moonfish it is slightly elongated and resembles a melon or torpedo. At the same time, the body is flattened from the sides, but does not differ in grace. The edges of the body appear torn and resemble a failed pancake. All languages ​​of the world in one way or another contain a reference to this unusual feature. In most European languages, these creatures are called moonfish or sunfish, the Latin name of the species is translated as “millstone”, and in Polish this fish is called “samoglav”, because it seems as if it consists of only one giant head. The body of the moon fish is indeed greatly shortened, but the most surprising thing is that it lacks the main organ of movement - the tail! It is replaced by a blade, devoid of its own muscular system. The body of moonfish appears high due to the highly developed oval-pointed dorsal and anal fins. The pectoral fins, on the contrary, are very small. The eyes are relatively large with a good-natured, stupid expression. The mouth of these fish is also relatively small; sharp teeth form something like jaws, but are not suitable for chewing hard objects. The skin is very thick, rough to the touch due to the bony plates that dot it, but at the same time elastic.

Although Moon Pisces does not shine with beauty and grace, they cannot fail to inspire admiration. The fact is that these are the largest of all bony fish, second in size only to the whale shark (a cartilaginous fish). The usual size of an adult is 2-3 m in height (since they are longer vertically than horizontally), weight is about 1 ton. The Guinness Book of Records records a sunfish measuring 4.2 m and weighing 2.3 tons! The only “dwarf” in this family is the knapsack, only 80 cm long. The coloring of these creatures also emphasizes their resemblance to the moon or millstones. It is gray, sometimes with whitish spots on the sides. Interestingly, moon fish are able to change color slightly: from slate gray to almost white. These fish do not have sexual dimorphism, so males and females do not differ from each other in appearance.

The sunfish's mouth appears tiny in proportion to its huge body.

Due to the lack of a tail, moonfish are forced to move with the help of fins (in most fish they serve only as rudders), but this method of movement is very ineffective. Making leisurely strokes of their fins, these creatures can swim very slowly, and often prefer to drift with the current. Sometimes sunfish swim on their sides, but these are probably sick or dying individuals. Despite their colossal size, these fish are very peaceful, phlegmatic and defenseless. They are completely unable to resist the attack of predators, and when attacked, they only passively watch as the aggressor tears their body.

Moonfish feed on small prey, which are as sedentary as they themselves. Their food includes jellyfish, ctenophores, salps, small crustaceans and squids. Moreover, they search for food both on the surface of the water and in the depths. They can tear into pieces an animal that does not fit into their small mouth, and grind solid food with their pharyngeal teeth. According to some evidence, sunfish meat can be poisonous, probably due to the consumption of poisonous jellyfish and the accumulation of toxins in the muscles of the fish.

The tiny baby sunfish is armed with spines.

Moonfish do not have special spawning grounds, so they spawn in the same areas where they feed. In terms of fertility, the females of these species have no equal: each can lay up to 300 million eggs! This is an absolute record in the world of fish. Sunfish eggs are extremely small and float in the water column (such eggs are called pelagic eggs). Thanks to this, it can be carried by currents over long distances, contributing to the spread of these slow-moving creatures across the oceans. The tiny fry that hatch from the eggs initially have large spines to protect them from predators. However, the young grow very quickly and by 15 months reach a size of 1.8 m. According to observations in captivity, sunfish can live up to 10 years; life expectancy in nature has not been precisely established.

Despite their large size, moonfish have many enemies. Young individuals can be attacked by tuna, while killer whales and sharks like to hunt adults. There are cases when sea lions played with these fish, biting off their fins and throwing their bodies above the water. People in different parts of the world view moonfish differently. In Taiwan and Japan, they are considered the greatest delicacy (along with the related species puffer fish) and are eaten from all parts of the body. In European countries, fishing for these species is prohibited. And in the tropics, sunfish are not eaten, but they are not protected either. Here they are considered pests that steal bait from hooks, so fishermen cut off the fins of caught individuals and condemn them to a slow, painful death in the depths of the ocean.

Common sunfish in the Barcelona Aquarium.

In captivity, these fish are extremely rare, since they require large and deep aquariums, and they are often injured on the walls of containers. Now the aquariums of Osaka, Monterey, Barcelona, ​​Lisbon and Valencia can boast of having these fish in their collections. Sunfish need protection as amazing and still little-studied representatives of the aquatic fauna.

Fish moon has such an interesting name that everyone wants to see what it is. In fact, this resident of the ocean is quite large in size, she can grow more than 3 meters, and her weight can be more than 2 tons.

In the USA, a fish was caught that reached five meters. It is a pity that the data on the weight of this specimen has not been preserved. It is not for nothing that it is considered the largest of the ray-finned fish, to which it belongs to the family.

The moon got its name because of the structure of its body. The back and tail of this fish have atrophied, so the body shape resembles a disk. But to some it looks more like the moon, hence the name. It must be said that the moon fish has more than one name. In Latin it is called the millstone fish (Mola mola), and the Germans call it the sun fish.

If we consider moon fish photo, then you can see a round-shaped fish, a very short tail, but wide, and long fins on the belly and back. Towards the head, the body narrows and ends with a mouth, which is elongated and has a round shape. It must be said that the beauty’s mouth is full of teeth, and they are fused together like one bone plate.

In the photo there is a moon fish or mola mola

The skin of this ocean dweller is very thick, covered with small bony pimples. However, this structure of the skin does not prevent it from being elastic. There are legends about the strength of the leather; even the “meeting” of a fish with the hull of a ship causes the paint to peel off the hull. The color itself can vary from very light, almost white, to gray and even brown.

It is believed that the huge beauty is not very smart, because with her weight of 200 kg, only 4 grams are allocated to the brain. Maybe that’s why she is practically indifferent to the appearance of a person and shows no reaction to him.

You can easily hook it with a hook, but you won’t be able to catch it with a harpoon - the skin of the fish reliably protects it from troubles in the form of a harpoon. The tip of the harpoon cannot penetrate this “armor”; it simply bounces off.

The skin of the moon fish is so thick that it cannot be pierced with a harpoon.

It seems that she does not notice the attack on her person at all; she slowly continues to swim further in the thickness of the Pacific, Indian or Atlantic oceans, where the fish is the moon and lives.

Character and lifestyle of the moon fish

It is interesting that the young of this fish swim quite normally, like most fish, but the adults have chosen a different method of swimming - they swim lying on their side. It’s hard to even call it swimming, it’s just a huge fish lying at the surface of the ocean and barely moving its fins. At the same time, if she wants, she can put her fin out of the water.

Some experts are inclined to think that only not entirely healthy individuals swim like this. But it is worth noting that even the healthiest moon fish is not an excellent swimmer. For her, any current, even not too strong, is too difficult a problem, so she swims where the current takes her. More than once, many sailors could admire how the giantess swayed on the waves.

Such a sight causes fear and even panic among South African fishermen; seeing a moon fish is considered a very bad omen. However, it itself does not attack a person and does not bring any harm to him.

Most likely, the fear is caused by some superstitions. There is also an explanation - you can see this fish near the shores only before an approaching storm. Despite the fact that the moon fish has sufficient weight and is well protected by its skin, it has plenty of enemies.

Sea lions and sea lions bring particular suffering. , for example, tries to gnaw the fish’s fins, after which the sedentary prey remains completely motionless, and only then the predator tears the moon fish apart.

Man is also quite dangerous for this fish. Many experts believe that the meat of the moon fish is tasteless, and some parts are even poisonous. However, there are a lot of restaurants in the world where they know how to cook it so that it is an exquisite delicacy.

The moon is also caught for medical preparations; it is especially valued for this in China. This inhabitant of ocean waters does not like company too much, preferring to live alone. You can meet her in pairs, but this happens extremely rarely.

This incomprehensible behavior interests the cleaners, and they get to work. And to make things go faster, you can also involve seabirds in the work. To do this, the moon puts its fin or snout out of the water.

Nutrition

With such a sluggish lifestyle fish moon, Certainly, predator cannot be considered. She would starve if she had to chase prey with her swimming skills.

The main food for this ray-finned representative is zooplankton. And he surrounds her in abundance, all she can do is suck him in. But the moon fish is not limited to plankton.

Small squids, fish fry, this is what the beauty can “serve to her table.” Sometimes a fish wants to taste plant food, and then it eats aquatic plants with great eagerness.

But although the inactivity of the moon fish does not give it the slightest chance of hunting, eyewitnesses claim that they observed something similar to this case. With all her 4 gram brain, this beauty has figured out how to get mackerel.

It is clear that she is not able to catch up with her, so the moon fish simply swims into the school of fish, rises up and plops down with all its weight into the water. The multi-ton carcass simply kills the mackerel and then starts eating. True, such “preparation” of food is not systematic and is not typical for all individuals.

Reproduction and lifespan of moon fish

The moon prefers to spawn in warm conditions, that is, in the waters of the Pacific, Atlantic or Indian oceans. This giant is considered a very fertile mother, because she lays hundreds of millions of eggs. However, it was not in vain that nature rewarded her with such a “large family”; only a small number of fry survive to adulthood.

The fry have a number of differences from their parents. At an early age they have a large head and a round body. In addition, fry have a swim bladder, but adults do not. And their tail is not as small as that of their parents.

Over time, the fry grow up, their teeth grow together into one plate, and their tail atrophies. The fry even change their swimming method. After all, after birth, the fry swim like most fish, and already in adulthood they begin to move in the same way as their parents - on their sides.

There is no exact data on the duration of this fish. In its natural environment, the fish has not yet been sufficiently studied, and it is extremely difficult to keep it in aquarium conditions - it does not tolerate limited space and often breaks against the walls of the reservoir or jumps onto land.

About the moon fish ( Mola mola), which suddenly went viral. Young Miss Sarah Burns wrote an antiode to “the biggest joke on Earth,” giving a number of reasons why fish should be immediately disliked or even hated. Below is a free and censored translation of this emotional speech (although in order to feel all its bile and capsules, it is worth turning to the original source).

“Sea life worries me more than anything else, seriously. Except for this huge stupid laughing idiot that I just hate!

The sunfish is the largest bony fish on Earth and can weigh more than two tons. At the same time, it is flat and looks like a giant plate, which the Lord must have accidentally dropped while washing the dishes and forgotten. Every kilogram of her is a meaningless waste of matter, and every centimeter of her body is a meaningless waste of space.

This fish is so mindless that scientists even argue about how it moves. She has almost no control over her movements in the water. Some say she releases water from her mouth to guide herself (???). She may be using her rear fin, but guess what? – he doesn’t even grow up! It simply folds in on itself as new cells appear - this piece of floating junk doesn't even bother to place them where they should be!

Huge sunfish off the coast of Portugal ( video).

“If she is so huge, then she must be predatory,” you thought. No matter how it is. Her most dangerous feature, as you may have guessed, is impenetrable stupidity. One moon fish once killed a man. Jumping into the boat. Right on the person. And then another decided to repeat her feat and jumped on the four-year-old boy. Fortunately, he was not injured. Nice try, fish. And so she usually feeds on jellyfish, because she can only catch something brainless, waiting for it to swim into her mouth. Everything she eats has virtually no nutritional value, and since she's so stupidly bulky, she's forced to eat a ton of tasteless crap to even survive. Stupid. And her mouth is small.

Sometimes they eat it itself. But without much appetite. Nobody in their right mind uses sunfish as a food source. Animals bite and maim her just for fun. The seals were observed playing frisbee with its fins. And this is perhaps the only benefit from this fish.

“Wow, you’re saying the right things, this fish is proof that the Lord has abandoned us!” Yes thank you. “But if she’s so stupid, why didn’t she go extinct?” Great question. Yes, because she is so worthless that she doesn’t even understand that she’s not worth living! She just swims around with the stupidest expression on her face and doesn't realize that she is the most unfortunate fish of all, or even the most unfortunate bunch of living cells! Do you know what she does? Lays more eggs than anyone else on Earth! Except perhaps for some bugs. Three hundred million eggs at once! 300,000,000. She survives only because it is statistically impossible for at least one of all these eggs not to survive!

That's why I hate this evolutionary mistake called the moonfish. If I ever see her, I’ll throw a cobblestone at her.”

At the time of publication, the post received more than 71 thousand likes and almost 77 thousand reposts. Many found it hilarious and thanked the author for raising their spirits; others even assured the public that they also now hate the moon fish. But there were also those who accused Burns of “phishism,” and some scientists even considered the post offensive. Biologist Zenia Sherman wrote response speech, which criticized Sarah Burns' claims and presented scientific facts about this giant, cute fish.

“The moon fish is awesome! I will beat anyone who dares to say otherwise! She doesn't look like anyone else and looks like an alien from another world. And incredibly cool!

Let me start by saying that sunfish are the heaviest bony fish in the world. And this is on a diet of jellyfish! Although recent research shows that they are somewhat more omnivorous: for example, they will bite on bait in the form of other fish and squid. Even if they only ate jellyfish occasionally, they would already be helping to reduce their numbers, which have increased due to overfishing of commercial fish. So moonfish are useful if only because they control jellyfish populations. This is the first thing.

Secondly, they do not swim passively at all, but quite actively - according to some evidence, they can swim 26 km a day! They often dive to depths (and eat siphonophores there. - Ed.), picking up speed comparable to marlins and sharks. I don’t know what kind of “rear fin” Miss was writing about, apparently about the tail plate - a scalloped rim of muscle that can be steered. They swim using synchronized movements of the dorsal and anal fins - of all animals, only moon fish can simultaneously wag their fins, which are not paired. And these fins provide the same traction as the wings of penguins. So they have complete control over their movement and swim no worse than many fish. Not bad for a two-ton head with wings!

You can’t help but wonder who is dumber, the moon fish or the equestrian. Do not do it this way.

Hate them because they don't have a swim bladder? So many fish don’t have it. For example, tuna and sharks - and no one says that they are “spit in the face of nature.” They just regulate their buoyancy differently. And the moon fish too. She has a skeleton made of cartilaginous tissue, even though she is a bony fish. It also has a gelatinous layer with low density and compressibility, this is much more useful than a bubble if you dive to depth (gas in a bubble does not respond as effectively to pressure changes). So fish moons are superbly tailored for vertical travel and don't need any stinking bladder.

Another reason Miss Sneaky hates the moonfish is because it gets stuck on the surface of the water. Let me tell you, the moon fish is quite capable of leaving the surface at the first desire! She swims there, it is believed, for the purpose of thermoregulation: scientists have found a significant connection between the time she spends in cold water and the time she spends on the surface. So she doesn’t get stuck there at all - she is “charging” for the next grandiose trip to the depths!

Bottom line: the moonfish rules, and Miss Burns is an evil, ignorant, small (especially in comparison with the moonfish) little person.”

However, disputes over fish did not result in a heated conflict. It soon became clear that Sarah Burns was not actually going to throw stones at the moonfish, she was quite peaceful towards all sea animals, and her post was written more for the sake of banter. And thanks to its unexpected popularity, people learned some amazing and often even true facts about the moon fish.

How many interesting things are hidden in the depths of the seas and oceans. And it also has its own Moon.

Moonfish- one of the most amazing sea creatures.

This fish entered into the Guinness Book of Records. Fish moon is YOURSELF:

A little about the name.

Appearance of the moon fish.

The skin is unusually thick, strong and elastic, covered with small bony tubercles. They say that even the skin of the ship cannot withstand a collision with a “crumb” fish and the paint peels off.

The tail is short, wide and truncated.

The dorsal and ventral fins of the sunfish are narrow and long, opposed to each other and moved far back.

The body gradually tapers towards the front and ends in an elongated round mouth full of teeth fused into a solid plate.

The color of the sunfish can be very different - from brown to gray and even white.

The 200-kilogram fish had a brain weight of only 4 grams, from which we can conclude that the moon fish is absolutely stupid. She hardly reacts to the approach of people and can often be caught with a hook. It is to hook, and not to catch, because under the scaleless skin there is a very thick and hard fibrous layer. Even the sharp end of a harpoon is not able to pierce him. The harpoon bounces off such armor and the moon fish continues its leisurely swimming.

Features of behavior.

Young individuals of this species swim like ordinary fish, and adults spend a significant part of their time lying on their sides, near the surface, lazily moving their fins, alternately exposing them from the water.

“Luna” is a very poor swimmer, unable to overcome strong currents. Therefore, the moon fish looks extremely apathetic... Sometimes sailors from a ship can watch how this harmless “monster” sways sluggishly on the surface of the water.

Moon Pisces prefers to be alone, but sometimes they are seen in pairs. Despite the fact that even large moonfish cannot cause any harm to humans, in some places off the coast of South Africa, fishermen experience superstitious fear when meeting this fish, considering it a harbinger of trouble, and hastily return to the shore. This is apparently explained by the fact that the “moon” approaches the shores only before bad weather, and fishermen associate its appearance with an approaching storm.

Nutritional features.

Sunfish feed on zooplankton.

Moonfish do not need to actively hunt to feed. Living, as a rule, in an environment rich in plankton, it is limited to sucking prey that swims within its reach. This is confirmed by studies of fish stomachs, in which crustaceans, small squids, leptocephali, ctenophores, fry, larvae and even jellyfish were found. The moonfish also does not disdain plant foods.

Where do they live?

The sunfish most often stays near the surface of the water, but has also been found at a depth of 300 meters. Scientists suggest that the sunfish can reach quite great depths.

These heavyweights live in all seas of the tropical and temperate zones. Sometimes they are carried to the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, to the shores of Scandinavia and Newfoundland. These beauties can also be found off the coast of Russia - in the northern part of the Sea of ​​Japan and in the area of ​​the southern islands of the Great Kuril Ridge.

The best place in Asian waters where divers can see this miracle fish is the island of Bali in Indonesia. From July to October, a deep-sea encounter with a marvelous ocean inhabitant is almost one hundred percent guaranteed.

The sunfish is not particularly shy, and with some skill you can swim almost close to it. But keep in mind that any careless movement will turn her into a swift flight, amazing for such a heavyweight.

Dangers to the sunfish.

They suffer from attacks by predators - sharks, killer whales, sea lions.

Humans also pose a serious danger to this sea creature. In some East Asian countries, where sunfish is considered a delicacy, it is specially caught, but in other places thousands of individuals die simply from industrial fishing for other fish.

Used in Chinese medicine as a medicine. Like the related fugu and abunawa, the sunfish's tissues contain toxins.

It has no commercial significance.

In captivity, sunfish adapt poorly and often die.