montereybayaquarium:It’s a tuna! It’s a baby whale! No, it’s… AN OCEAN SUNFISH!! We’re excited to we
montereybayaquarium:It’s a tuna! It’s a baby whale! No, it’s… AN OCEAN SUNFISH!! We’re excited to welcome a Mola mola back to our Open Sea Exhibit! This young mola comes to us from Carmel Bay. It’s 3-4 years old and weighs about 34kg/75lbs. We’re the only aquarium in North America to exhibit these sensitive animals, thanks to our proximity to their habitat. Sunfish are temporary guests at the Aquarium. Our dedicated sunfish aquarists train them to swim over to us to be hand-fed a specialized “mola sausage” that mimics their wild meals of jellies, shrimp and other invertebrates. Once they grow to be around 230kg/500 pounds, or if their behavior changes letting us know they’re ready to go, we release them back to the wild with tags allowing us to find out how large they’ve grown should someone come across them again.Mighty molas are often seen in Monterey Bay from whale watching boats, especially when jellies are close to the coast, and beachgoers commonly find carcasses of young ones washed up on the beach, usually after a sea lion had some mola munchies.Ocean sunfish are found in temperate seas around the world and two separate species can be found in Monterey Bay: The common sunfish Mola mola and the recently discovered Hoodwinker sunfish, Mola tecta. In fact, y’all here on Tumblr helped us find the first ever living, confirmed Mola tecta in Monterey Bay last year!Famous for being the heaviest bony fishes in the ocean, multiple Mola species reach 2,300kg/5,000lbs, and the title goes back and forth between the bumphead sunfish M. alexandrini and M. mola as new leviathans are discovered.)We’re never quite sure how long a sunfish will stay with us. For now, enjoy these moments of mola magic on the Open Sea Live Cam! Welcome to the Aquarium young mola! Woo!! -- source link
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#ocean chat#mola mola#ocean sunfish