Genus: Mola, Molas, Ocean Sunfish Mola, Ocean Sunfishes

MOLA

MOLAS, OCEAN SUNFISHES

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; 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, with bony ossicles on its margin, and an undulating rounded profile; skin thick, tough, with small, round denticles.

The genus, which includes two species, is found worldwide in tropical to warm temperate seas; 1 circumglobal species in the Greater Caribbean.