Moonfish breaks world record
Moonfish are quite bizarre sea creatures. Now a special specimen has washed up on a beach - with an impressive weight.
Moonfish or molas rarely appear off the German coasts, even though there were isolated sightings in the Baltic Sea in 2015, for example. Usually dead animals are found on the beach, which can give an indication of the dimensions of these misshapen fish, which look nothing like their kin. One particularly large and heavy specimen drifted off the coast of the Azores island of Faial in December 2021 and now officially holds the title of the heaviest known bony fish on Earth. This is reported by José Nuno Gomes-Pereira of Portugal's Atlantic Naturalist Association and his team in the Journal of Fish Biology.
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After the discovery of the carcass, a ship was called in to hoist the fish on board. The 3.5-metre-long animal weighed 2744 kilograms, a new world record that is only surpassed by cartilaginous fish like the whale shark. These giants, more than twice as long, can weigh up to almost 20 tonnes.
"The specimen of the species Mola alexandrini described here is the heaviest bony fish known to date," write those involved. It surpasses the largest congener known so far, which was caught off Kamogawa, Japan, in 1996 and weighed "only" 2300 kilograms. M. alexandrini can weigh more than twice as much as its close relative Mola mola, whose heaviest representative to date stands at 1320 kilograms.
It is not known how the animal died. However, it had an injury with paint residue on its head, which could indicate a collision with a ship. However, it could not be determined whether this injury occurred before or after death.
The body of moonfishes is not streamlined like that of most other fishes, but with its high-backed and laterally compressed body, it almost looks like a swimming head. This makes the moonfish rather poor swimmers that let themselves drift with the current. This is also how they get into the Baltic Sea, where they survive poorly due to a lack of food and the sometimes brackish water.
Spectrum of Science
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Titelbild: © Nuno Valadas / Getty Images / iStock (Ausschnitt) Mondfische sind unförmig und schwer, wie viel dieses Tier wiegt, ist unbekannt – ein Artgenosse brach allerdings den Rekord für Knochenfische.
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