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Ocean sunfish — printable fact sheet
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Ocean sunfish
Mola mola
The ocean sunfish is the heaviest bony fish in the world and looks like a fish that has been bitten in half. It effectively has no tail — the rear of the body ends in a clavus, a rudder formed from fused fin rays — and it swims instead by sculling its enormous dorsal and anal fi…
Did you know?
- Despite their size, ocean sunfish are often mistaken for sharks or other sea creatures due to their enormous dorsal and anal fins breaking the surface.
- The heaviest bony fish alive — and it has essentially no tail, swimming by flapping its dorsal and anal fins like wings. It basks on its side at the surface to rewarm after deep, cold dives — and to let seabirds pick off its parasites. It can carry dozens of parasite species at once. A female may produce hundreds of millions of eggs, more than any other known vertebrate.
What I learned
Draw the ocean sunfish
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