We all know that huge trees can grow from very small seeds. The same seems to be the case with the giant break fish species, which resembles huge plates. Now, one specimen has become the heaviest bony fish in the world, weighing 2,744 kilograms.
What is break fish?
Ocean sunfish, also called molas, are known as the heaviest living bony fish and can grow to over 3 meters. There are three species: the ocean sunfish (Mola mola), the giant sunfish (Mola alexandrini), and the hooded sunfish (Mola tecta). They spend their lives wandering between the deep ocean and the sea surface, basking in the sun for warmth and to use the grooming gulls as a parasiticide.
In December 2021, a floating giant sunfish was found near Faial Island off Horta Port in the Azores archipelago, Portugal. This gigantic specimen was loaded aboard the Azores and transported ashore with the aid of a forklift.
On the scale, it turned out to have a body length of 3.59 meters and a weight of 2,744 kilograms, making it the heaviest bony fish on record.
“The M. alexandrini reported here is the heaviest teleost specimen ever reported,” the scientists who made the discovery wrote. “The largest previously known specimen, caught off Kamogawa, Japan, in 1996, weighed 2,300 kg.”
Researchers working on the cause of death of the ocean giant have not yet come to a definite conclusion. A gouge with paint marks on its head suggests the animal struck the keel of a boat at some point, though it’s unclear whether this happened before or after death.
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