A giant sunfish caught on Iturup was fed to bears. In the Kuril Islands, such fish are quite rarely caught in nets. When you meet them in the ocean, you can be seriously scared. Although the moonfish is completely harmless. Its meat is considered a delicacy in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. But Russian fishermen do not favor moonfish.
The Sakhalin Museum of Local Lore was very interested in the news about the caught sunfish. His employees wanted to make an exhibit out of it.
But when the museum workers turned to the fishermen, it was too late. By this time, the moonfish had already been eaten by bears. The fact is that she was caught on September 9, and was brought ashore only on Monday. During transportation it managed to deteriorate. And her carcass was fed to wild animals.
As already mentioned, in some Asian countries, sunfish meat is considered a delicacy; it allegedly even has healing properties. Although there is information that in her internal organs There is a poison called tetrodotoxin, just like puffer fish. In EU countries there is a ban on the sale of sunfish products.
But in Russia, fishermen don’t like them because they tangle their nets. And if they are caught, they are often simply released back into the water. In Primorye, a sunfish was once killed on the coast near the village of Zarubino, confused with a shark. Apparently, she was carried there by the current.
The sunfish is the largest living bony fish. In profile, her body resembles an almost perfect circle. With such unusual shape It is very difficult for an adult to maintain a vertical position in the water, so it spends most of its time lying on its side, like a flounder, but only on the surface of the water. Interestingly, scientists nicknamed this fish “the stupid one” because of its very small brain and body shape. Despite her scary appearance, she is absolutely harmless. That's why the sunfish is a favorite of divers around the world. You can swim as close as possible to it and take wonderful shots.
Adult sunfish reach an average length of almost two meters. The height distance between the tips of the fins is approximately two and a half meters. The average weight is close to a ton. But this is far from the limit! The largest specimen of the sunfish was caught in the USA, in New Hampshire. Its length was five and a half meters, although there was no data on weight. The Guinness Book of Records provides data on an individual caught on September 18, 1908 near Sydney. Its length was 3 meters 10 centimeters, its height exceeded four meters, and it weighed two thousand two hundred and thirty-five kilograms!
Sunfish are found primarily in tropical and subtropical waters. How did she get to the Kuril Islands?
“The fact that it appeared here is, of course, very rare. This is an unusual phenomenon. Our Southern Kuril Islands are, after all, the region of the subtropics, one might say. It’s still cold there. Most likely, we're talking about about accidental skidding. It is possible that this is due to the fact that the waters of the northern Pacific in Lately are becoming warmer,” notes Professor of the Department of Ichthyology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Biological Sciences Kirill Kuzishchin.
In conditions of global warming, these fish will apparently visit Russian shores more often. And the staff of the Sakhalin Museum of Local Lore have already asked the fishermen next time not to feed the rare individual to the bears, but to donate it to the museum.
Moon fish are amazing and little-studied creatures, striking in their size, appearance and colossal fertility. 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.
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Sunfish, mola mola (Latin meaning “millstone”), samoglav (Polish name). The usual size of an adult is 2-3 meters in height, weight is about 1 ton. The Guinness Book of Records provides data on an individual caught on September 18, 1908 near Sydney, whose length was 3.1 m, height 4.26 m, and weight 2235 kg. Pisces Moon refers to bony fish, unlike sharks, which are cartilaginous fish. There are only three species in the sunfish family: the common sunfish, the sharp-tailed moonfish, and the sunfish.
The moon fish lacks the main organ of movement - the tail! It is replaced by a blade devoid of its own muscular system. The mouth of these fish is relatively small; sharp teeth form something like jaws, but are not suitable for chewing hard objects. Fish eat jellyfish, ctenophores, salps, small crustaceans and mollusks. Sunfish cannot catch up with their prey and therefore feed by sucking in water. The cruising speed of the moonfish is 3 km/h.
Female sunfish hold the record for spawning among fish: each can spawn up to 300 million eggs. The eggs are extremely small and float in the water column. Thanks to this, it can be carried by currents over long distances, facilitating the spread of sunfish. The fry have large spines for protection from predators. Like other fish of the pufferfish family, the sunfish builds up poison in its body by eating poisonous jellyfish. With the onset of dusk, the fish descend to a depth of up to a kilometer, hiding from their enemies.
Young sunfish can be attacked by tuna, while adults are hunted by killer whales and sharks. They bite off the fish's fins, and then, biting off one piece at a time, eat it. There are cases when sea lions played with these fish, biting off their fins and throwing their bodies above the water. The sunfish cannot escape or defend itself from predators, so it can only watch as it is eaten.
People in different parts of the world view moonfish differently. In Thailand, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, they are considered the greatest delicacy (on par with fugu) and are eaten by all parts of the body. True, moonfish dishes are served only in specialized restaurants. Moonfish meat has a jelly-like consistency and is more like a thick whitish paste with a pungent iodine aroma. Skillfully cooked meat tastes like lobster.
In European countries, fishing for these fish is prohibited, firstly, there are few of them in European waters, and secondly, they are again poisonous. 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, dooming them to a slow, painful death in the ocean.
It is quite common to see sunfish swimming on the surface of the ocean. What she is doing there - resting, sunbathing or dying - is not completely clear.
In Latin it is called Mola Mola, and on English language "Ocean Sunfish" is a fish that looks like the moon, which gives it its name. She looks like she only has one head instead of a body, but it's not that simple.
Imagine an animal weighing 1000 kg having a brain the size of a peanut, weighing only 4 grams!
This explains why this fish is very quiet, calm... and quite stupid.
What does a moon fish look like?
The body is tall, strongly laterally flattened, covered with very thick, elastic skin. No coccyx. High fin dorsal and anal. Small mouth . Adults do not have a bladder.
The largest specimen weighs two tons and is 3 meters long!
The sunfish is also probably the most fertile fish in the world. The average female of this species lays about 300 million eggs!
Where does the moon fish live and what does it eat?
The moon fish lives a rather lonely life, swimming freely in the vast expanses of the ocean. Sometimes, however, they gather in groups and swim sideways on the surface of the water, apparently sunbathing in the sun (hence their English name - Sunfish)
Sometimes these giants accidentally fall into fishing nets and fishermen are forced to lift them on board using cranes.
Despite their rather formidable appearance, representatives of this species feed on plankton. They also do not disdain jellyfish, calamari and eel larvae, and do not miss shellfish. The moonfish can be found in all tropical waters, and, despite its size, it is absolutely harmless to people, and the places where it appears are often the site of large-scale diving expeditions.
On the other hand, a huge fish poses a serious threat to small ships - a collision with a small yacht moving at high speed can end badly for both the fish and the sailors.
Moonfish caught on Sakhalin
A fish with a record weight of 1,100 kilograms was pulled out with nets by a fishing seiner from Sakhalin called the Kuril Fisherman. Russian fishermen were working near Iturup Island, their main goal was pink salmon, and the sunfish turned up by chance.
Photo: Sakhalin.info Nevertheless, they delivered a rare specimen to the base. Since there was no room for it in the cold hold, the fish deteriorated during the passage and loading ashore. She was taken to the Gidrostroy company's landfill, where workers feed and photograph the bears. Very quickly nothing remained of the thousand-kilogram carcass.
Largest size of Pisces moon
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The Sakhalin ship "Kuril Fisherman" netted a very rare specimen of the sunfish. When weighed, it turned out that she weighs 1,100 kilograms. While the fish was being brought ashore and measured, it spoiled, so it was thrown out to feed wild animals. But even despite this, Russian fishermen became heroes of Western media for a day.
The Kuril Fisherman, a fishing seiner from Sakhalin, pulled out a fish with a record weight of 1,100 kilograms with nets on Saturday, September 9, writes Sakhalin.info. Russian fishermen were working near Iturup Island, their main goal was pink salmon, and the sunfish turned up by chance.
Nevertheless, they delivered a rare specimen to the base. Since there was no room for it in the cold hold, the fish deteriorated during the passage and loading ashore. She was taken to the Gidrostroy company's landfill, where workers feed and photograph the bears. Very quickly nothing remained of the thousand-kilogram carcass.
Local historians wanted to take the fish for themselves in order to make a stuffed animal out of it and exhibit it in the Sakhalin Museum of Local Lore, but by the time they arrived there was nothing left of the moon. Sunfish can be quite large, but specimens larger than a ton are rare these days.
Luna lives mainly in tropical and subtropical seas, distributed in Southeast Asia, off the coast of China, Korea, and Japan. In Japan it is considered a delicacy. In the EU, catching and selling sunfish is prohibited. The largest specimen ever caught by man (in 1908 in Sydney) weighed 2,235 kilograms. Luna is the heaviest of the bony fish.
Russian fishermen became famous thanks to their catch, all the world's tabloids like The Sun and The Daily Mail wrote about them, and the story is full of details. Thus, The Daily Mail writes that the sailors argued whether the fish should have been returned to the sea, but the dispute dragged on and therefore it died. And LadBible calculated how many servings of fish and chips could be prepared from such fish: 1,170. Russian social media users in general are not very happy with how the fishermen treated such a rare animal.
There is a fisherman in Russia who constantly shares photographs of strange creatures, including sea chimeras and monkfish, that he comes across at work. This is Roman Fedortsov from Murmansk, and his. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check it out, it's worth it.
They fed it to the bears. In the Kuril Islands, such fish are quite rarely caught in nets. When you meet them in the ocean, you can be seriously scared. Although the moonfish is completely harmless. Its meat is considered a delicacy in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. But Russian fishermen do not favor moonfish.
The Sakhalin Museum of Local Lore was very interested in the news about the caught sunfish. His employees wanted to make an exhibit out of it. Indeed, the sunfish is a rare guest in our waters.
But when the museum workers turned to the fishermen, it was too late. By this time, the moonfish had already been eaten by bears. The fact is that she was caught on September 9, and was brought ashore only on Monday. During transportation it managed to deteriorate. And her carcass was fed to wild animals.
As already mentioned, in some Asian countries, sunfish meat is considered a delicacy; it allegedly even has healing properties. Although there is information that its internal organs contain the poison tetrodotoxin, just like puffer fish. In EU countries there is a ban on the sale of sunfish products.
But in Russia, fishermen don’t like them because they tangle their nets. And if they are caught, they are often simply released back into the water. In Primorye, a sunfish was once killed on the coast near the village of Zarubino, confused with a shark. Apparently, she was carried there by the current.
Moonfish is. In profile, her body resembles an almost perfect circle. With such an unusual shape as an adult, it is very difficult to maintain an upright position in the water, so it spends most of its time lying on its side, like a flounder, but only on the surface of the water. Interestingly, scientists nicknamed this fish “the stupid one” because of its very small brain and body shape. Despite her scary appearance, she is absolutely harmless. That's why the sunfish is a favorite of divers around the world. You can swim as close as possible to it and take wonderful shots.
Adult sunfish reach an average length of almost two meters. The height distance between the tips of the fins is approximately two and a half meters. The average weight is close to a ton. But this is far from the limit! The largest specimen of the sunfish was caught in the USA, in New Hampshire. Its length was five and a half meters, although there was no data on weight. The Guinness Book of Records provides data on an individual caught on September 18, 1908 near Sydney. Its length was 3 meters 10 centimeters, its height exceeded four meters, and it weighed two thousand two hundred and thirty-five kilograms!
Sunfish are found primarily in tropical and subtropical waters. How did she get to the Kuril Islands?
"The fact that it appeared here is, of course, very rare. This is an unusual phenomenon. Our Southern Kuril Islands are, after all, the region of the subtropics, one might say. It’s still cold there. Most likely, we are talking about an accidental introduction. It’s possible , which is due to the fact that the waters of the northern Pacific have recently become warmer,” notes the professor of the Department of Ichthyology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Biological Sciences Kirill Kuzishchin.
In conditions of global warming, these fish will apparently visit Russian shores more often. And the staff of the Sakhalin Museum of Local Lore have already asked the fishermen next time not to feed the rare individual to the bears, but to donate it to the museum.
