Species: Mola mola, Ocean Sunfish, Ocean Sunfish Mola

Mola mola (Linnaeus, 1758)

Ocean Sunfish, Ocean Sunfish Mola

Body a deep oval (depth usually ~ length), strongly compressed; mouth a horizontal slit when closed, opens at the front, is a beak (without a central suture) composed of teeth fused to the jaws; gill openings small, on side just before pectorals; gill rakers are covered with skin; pectorals short, rounded; no pelvics; dorsal 17-18 rays; anal 14-18 rays; pectoral 12-13 rays; no tail base; dorsal and anal fins long and high, symmetrical, used for locomotion, at rear of body, their rear rays joined to tail fin immediately behind them that is reduced to a vertically elongate, short, blunt rudder; tail rudder with 12 (10-13) supporting rays, 8-9 of those with bony ossicles, margin with 8-9 ossicles that are small, widely separated; edge of rudder with an undulating rounded profile; skin thick, tough, with small round denticles; a band of reduced denticles between dorsal and anal fins at base of rudder.

Grey brown to dark blue above, often with large pale blotches, silvery below, fins dark.

Size: 368 cm.

Habitat: oceanic.

Depth: near surface, 0-480 m.

Circumglobal, tropical to warm temperate; Newfoundland to Argentina.

Note: Genetic analyses indicate that the Atlantic and Pacific forms probably are separate species.