This is the moment a giant sunfish greeted two paddleboarders off the coast of Laguna Beach in California. Rich German and his friend Matthew Wheaton were on their boards when the sunfish, also known as a mola mola, approached.
German, 52, later posted the footage to his Instagram page which shows his friend kneeling down on his 14ft-long board to get a closer look at the fish.
Sharing the footage, he wrote: ‘Matthew Weaton and I stumbled upon this massive sunfish only a couple hundred yards or so offshore yesterday.
“According to the internet the largest one on record is 8’11”.
“We didn’t have a measuring tape but Matt’s board is 14 foot long and the fish sure looked a solid 9ft-plus.
“Always fun to witness one of these interesting creatures. Holy mola mola!’
Afterwards he added: ‘My buddy, Matt, and I were just paddling and came across it – it was hard to miss!
“It’s hard to compare a sunfish to other creatures because they are so bizarre looking – they look like a mutilated shark that got bitten in half.
“I’ve seen many over the years but this was definitely the biggest.”
According to the Guinness Book of Records, a different sunfish taken in 1996 near Kamogawa, a city in Chiba, Japan, holds the title of the largest bony fish in the world in terms of weight. That specimen was 8 feet 11 inches long and weighed 2,300 kilograms.
The fish observed by German and Wharton was larger than the typical size fish seen off Laguna Beach, according to Julianne Steers of the Beach Ecology Coalition. She told the OC Register: ‘The only true way to know is if it was out and weighed and officially measured.’
Initially it was thought that sunfish floated on ocean currents, but now researchers believe they can travel two miles per hour swimming up to 16 miles per day. The scientific name for the sunfish is a mola mola. They are omnivores and can live up to ten years and can weigh up to two-and-a-half tonnes.
Sunfish are the heaviest of all bony fish and can get infested by parasites. The sunfish are harmless to humans but are incredibly vulnerable. They are known to die after eating plastic bags which they confuse with jellyfish.
