Fish moon Indian Ocean how to cook. Common moonfish or mola-mola: photo and description

Having met this fish in the ocean, you can be seriously scared. Still - a whopper 3-5 meters long and weighing several tons is able to inspire fear with its size and completely implausible appearance.

In fact, the moon fish is completely harmless, because it feeds on jellyfish, ctenophores, small fish, crustaceans and other zooplankton, which, unfortunately, turned out to be next to it. This fish does not know how to swiftly maneuver and swim quickly in pursuit of prey, but only sucks everything edible that is nearby into its mouth-beak.

Because of its rounded outlines, in many languages of the world this unusual creature is called moonfish, or sun fish (sunfish), due to the habit of basking in the sun while floating on the surface. The translation of the German name means " floating head”, Polish -“ lonely head", the Chinese call this fish" overturned car". In Latin, the most numerous genus of these fish is called mola, which means "millstone". The similar name of the fish was earned not only by the shape of the body, but also by the gray, rough skin.

Moonfish belong to the order Pufferfish, which includes pufferfish and urchinfish, with which they have much in common. First of all, these are four fused front teeth that form a characteristic non-closing beak, which gave the Latin name to the order - Tetraodontiformes (four-toothed). Family of moon-shaped, or moon-fish, ( Molidae) is united by the unusual appearance of these millstone-like animals. One gets the impression that at the dawn of evolution, someone bit off the back of the fish, just behind the dorsal and anal fins, and they survived and gave birth to an equally strange offspring. Indeed, representatives of this family of vertebrae have fewer vertebrae than other bony fish, for example, in the species mola mola- there are only 16 of them, the pelvic girdle is completely reduced, the caudal fin is absent, and instead of it there is a tuberous pseudo-tail. The family Molidae includes three genera and five species of sunfish:

Genus Masturus

Genus Mola

Genus Ranzania

Almost all representatives of the moonfish family live in tropical, subtropical, and sometimes temperate waters. They all reach large sizes and have a rounded, laterally compressed head and body shape. They have rough skin, no tail bones, and a skeleton composed mostly of cartilage. Moonfish do not have bony plates in their skin, but the skin itself is thick and dense, like cartilage. They are painted in brown, silver-gray, white, sometimes with patterns, colors. These fish do not have swim bladder, which disappears in the early stages of larval development.

Moonfish are the largest of the bony fish. The largest measured mola mola reached a length of 3.3 m and weighed 2.3 tons. There are reports that they caught fish that reached a length of more than five meters. In the process of development from larvae to adults, all sunfish go through several stages of development, and all forms are completely different from each other. The larvae that have hatched from the eggs resemble pufferfish, then wide bone plates appear on the body of the grown larvae, which are later preserved only in fish of the genus Ranzania, in the mole and masturus, the protrusions on the plates gradually turn into sharp long spikes, which then disappear. The caudal fin and swim bladder gradually disappear, and the teeth merge into a single plate.

Moon fish - (lat. Mola mola), translated from Latin as a millstone. This fish can be over three meters long and weigh about one and a half tons. The largest specimen of the moonfish was caught in New Hampshire, USA. Its length was five and a half meters, data on weight are not available. In shape, the body of the fish resembles a disk, it was this feature that gave rise to the Latin name.

The most studied moonfish of the genus Mola. Fish of the genus Masturus are very similar to mola mola, but they have an elongated pseudo-tail and the eyes are more forward. There was an opinion that these fish are anomalous mola, which left the larval tail, but studies have shown that in the process of fish growth, pseudo-tail rays appear after the reduction of the larval tail. Representatives of the genus Ranzania are somewhat different from other moonfish, which reach a small size of 1 m and have a flatter and elongated body shape.

All moonfish use very long and narrow anal and dorsal fins when moving, waving them like a bird's wings, and small pectoral fins while serving as stabilizers. To steer, fish spit a strong jet of water from their mouths or gills. Despite the love to bask in the sun, moon-fish live at a respectable depth of several hundred, and sometimes thousands of meters.

Moonfish are reported to be able to produce sounds by rubbing their pharyngeal teeth, which are long and claw-like.

In 1908, this moon fish was caught 65 kilometers off the coast of Sydney, it became entangled in the propellers of the Fiona steamer, which prevented the ship from moving on. At the time, it was the largest moonfish ever caught, measuring 3.1m long and 4.1m wide. Photo: danmeth

Moon-fish are champions in the number of spawned eggs, one female is able to lay several hundred million eggs. Despite such fertility, the number of these extraordinary fish is declining. Except natural enemies, which prey on larvae and adults, the moonfish population is threatened by humans: in many Asian countries they are considered medicinal and are widely captured, although there is evidence that the meat of these fish contains toxins, like urchin fish and pufferfish, and in internal organs There is poison tetrodotoxin, like puffer fish.

The moonfish has thicker skin. It is elastic, and its surface is covered with small bony protrusions. Fish larvae of this species and juveniles swim in the usual way. Adult large fish swim on their side, quietly moving their fins. They seem to lie on the surface of the water, where they are very easy to notice and catch. However, many experts believe that only sick fish swim in this way. As an argument, they cite the fact that the stomach of fish caught on the surface is usually empty.

Compared to other fish, the moonfish swims poorly. She is unable to fight the current and often swims at the behest of the waves, without a purpose. This is observed by sailors, noticing the dorsal fin of this clumsy fish.

AT Atlantic Ocean sunfish can reach Great Britain and Iceland, the coast of Norway, and even climb even further north. In the Pacific Ocean in the summer you can see the moonfish in the Sea of Japan, more often in the northern part, and near the Kuril Islands.

Although the moon fish looks quite menacing because of its impressive size, it is not terrible for a person. However, there are many signs among sailors South Africa who interpret the appearance of this fish as a sign of trouble. This is probably due to the fact that the moonfish approaches the shore only before the weather worsens. Sailors associate the appearance of fish with an approaching storm and rush to return to shore. Such superstitions also appear due to unusual look fish and their way of swimming.

It is called in Latin Mola Mola, and on English language Ocean Sunfish is a fish that looks like the moon, which gave it its name. She looks like she has only one head instead of a torso, but it's not that simple.

Imagine that an animal weighing 1000 kg has 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 high , strongly flattened laterally , covered with very thick , elastic skin . No coccyx. High dorsal and anal fin. Small mouth . Adults do not have a bladder.

The largest specimen weighs two tons and is 3 meters long!

The moonfish 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 rather lonely, 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 aboard with cranes.

Despite their rather formidable appearance, representatives of this species feed on plankton. Also, they do not disdain jellyfish, calamari and eel larvae, and do not miss mollusks. Moonfish can be found in all tropical waters, and despite its size, it is absolutely harmless to humans, and the places of its appearance are often the site of large-scale diving expeditions.

On the other hand, a huge fish poses a serious threat to small boats - a collision with a sailing on high speed a small yacht can end badly for both fish and sailors.

Moon fish caught on Sakhalin

A fish with a record weight of 1,100 kilograms was pulled by a fishing seiner from Sakhalin called “Kuril fisherman” with nets. Russian fishermen worked near the island of Iturup, their main target was pink salmon, and the sunfish turned up by accident.

Photo: Sakhalin.info

Nevertheless, they delivered a rare copy to the base. Since there was no place for it in the cold hold, the fish deteriorated during the passage and loading ashore. She was taken to the dump of the Gidrostroy company, where workers feed and photograph bears. Very quickly, nothing remained of the thousand-kilogram carcass.

The largest size Pisces of the moon

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Because of its rounded outlines, in many languages of the world this unusual creature is called a moon fish, or a sun fish, because of the habit of basking in the sun, swimming on the surface. The translation of the German name means "floating head", Polish - "lonely head", the Chinese call this fish "upside down car". In Latin, the most numerous genus of these fish is called mola, which means "millstone". The similar name of the fish was earned not only by the shape of the body, but also by the gray, rough skin.

Indeed, representatives of this family of vertebrae have fewer vertebrae than other bony fish, for example, in the species mola mola - there are only 16 of them, the pelvic girdle is completely reduced, the caudal fin is absent, and instead of it there is a bumpy pseudo-tail. The family Molidae includes three genera and five species of sunfish:

Sharptail moonfish, Sharptail mola, Masturus lanceolatus
Masturus oxyuropterus

Ocean sunfish, Mola mola
Southern sunfish, Mola ramsayi

Slender sunfish, Slender sunfish, Ranzania laevis.

Almost all representatives of the moonfish family live in tropical, subtropical, and sometimes temperate waters. All of them reach large sizes and have a rounded, laterally compressed head and body shape. They have rough skin, no tail bones, and a skeleton composed mostly of cartilage. Moonfish do not have bony plates in their skin, but the skin itself is thick and dense, like cartilage. They are painted in brown, silver-gray, white, sometimes with patterns, colors. These fish lack a swim bladder, which disappears in the early stages of larval development.

Moonfish are the largest of the bony fish. The largest measured mola mola was 3.3 m long and weighed 2.3 tons. There are reports that they caught fish that reached a length of more than five meters. In the process of development from larvae to adults, all sunfish go through several stages of development, and all forms are completely different from each other. The larvae that have hatched from the eggs resemble pufferfish, then wide bone plates appear on the body of the grown larvae, which are later preserved only in fish of the genus Ranzania, in the mole and masturus, the protrusions on the plates gradually turn into sharp long spikes, which then disappear. The caudal fin and swim bladder gradually disappear, and the teeth merge into a single plate.

When moving, all moonfish use very long and narrow anal and dorsal fins, waving them like a bird's wings, while small pectoral fins serve as stabilizers. To steer, fish spit a strong jet of water from their mouths or gills. Despite the love to bask in the sun, moon-fish live at a respectable depth of several hundred, and sometimes thousands of meters.

Moonfish are reported to be able to produce sounds by rubbing their pharyngeal teeth, which are long and claw-like.

Moon-fish are champions in the number of spawned eggs, one female is able to lay several hundred million eggs. Despite such fertility, the number of these extraordinary fish is declining. In addition to natural enemies that prey on larvae and adults, the moonfish population is threatened by humans: in many Asian countries they are considered curative and their large-scale capture is carried out, although there is evidence that the meat of these fish contains toxins, like hedgehogs and pufferfish , and in the internal organs there is a poison tetrodotoxin, like in pufferfish.

In the Atlantic Ocean, moonfish can reach Great Britain and Iceland, the coast of Norway, and even climb even further north. In the Pacific Ocean in the summer you can see the moonfish in the Sea of Japan, more often in the northern part, and near the Kuril Islands.

Although the moon fish looks quite menacing because of its impressive size, it is not terrible for a person. However, there are many signs among South African sailors who interpret the appearance of this fish as a sign of trouble. This is probably due to the fact that the moonfish approaches the shore only before the weather worsens. Sailors associate the appearance of fish with an approaching storm and rush to return to shore. Similar superstitions also appear due to the unusual type of fish and its way of swimming.

Scientific classification:
Domain: Eukaryotes
Kingdom: Animals
Type of: Chordates
Class: Ray-finned fish
Detachment: Pufferfishes
Family: Moon-fish (lat. Molidae (Bonaparte, 1832))

How many interesting things are hidden in the depths of the seas and oceans. And there, too, has its own moon.

moonfish- one of the most amazing sea creatures.

This fish listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The moonfish is YOURSELF:

A little about the title.

The appearance of the fish-moon.

The skin is unusually thick, strong and elastic, covered with small bony tubercles. It is said that even the skin of the ship does not withstand a collision with a “crumb” fish and the paint peels off from it.

The tail is short, wide and truncated.

The dorsal and ventral fins of the moonfish are narrow and long, opposed to each other and shifted far back.

The body gradually tapers towards the anterior part and ends with an elongated round mouth full of teeth fused into a solid plate.

The color of the moon fish is very different - from brown to gray and even white.

In a 200-kilogram fish, the weight of the brain was only 4 grams, from which we can conclude that the moon-fish is absolutely stupid. She almost does not react to the approach of people and can often be hooked with a hook. It is to hook, not to catch, because under the skin devoid of scales there is a very thick and hard fibrous layer. Even the sharp end of the harpoon is not able to pierce it. The harpoon bounces off such armor and the moon-fish continues its leisurely swimming.

Features of behavior.

Young individuals of this species swim like ordinary fish, while adults spend much of their time lying on their sides, near the surface, lazily flipping their fins, exposing them one by one from the water.

"Moon" is a very poor swimmer, unable to overcome a strong current. Therefore, the moon-fish looks extremely apathetic ... Sometimes sailors from the ship can watch how this harmless "monster" sways languidly on the surface of the water.

Moon-fish prefers loneliness, but sometimes they are met in pairs. Despite the fact that even large moon fish cannot harm a person, in some places off the coast of South Africa, fishermen experience superstitious fear when they meet this fish, considering it a harbinger of trouble, and hastily return to the shore. This, apparently, is explained by the fact that the "moon" approaches the shores only before bad weather, and fishermen associate its appearance with an impending storm.

Features of nutrition.

Zooplankton serves as food for moonfish.

To eat, the moonfish does not need to actively hunt. Living, as a rule, in an environment rich in plankton, it is limited to sucking in prey that swims within its reach. This is confirmed by studies of the stomachs of fish, in which crustaceans, small squids, leptocephals, ctenophores, fry, larvae and even jellyfish were found. The moonfish also does not disdain plant food.

Where do they live?

Moon-fish most often keeps near the surface of the water, but was also found at a depth of 300 meters. Scientists suggest that the moonfish can reach a fairly large depth.

These heavyweights live in all the seas of the tropical and temperate. Sometimes they are brought to the Black Sea, the Baltic, to the shores of Scandinavia and Newfoundland. These beauties can also be found off the coast of Russia - in the northern part Sea of Japan and the region of the southern islands of the Great Kuril Ridge.

The best place in Asian waters where divers can see this miracle fish is the island of Bali in Indonesia. From July to October, a deep-sea meeting with a marvelous ocean dweller is almost one hundred percent guaranteed.

The moon fish is not particularly shy, and with a certain skill, you can swim up to it almost close. But keep in mind that any careless movement will turn her into a swift flight, amazing for such a heavyweight.

Dangers for the fish-moon.

They suffer from the attack of predators - sharks, killer whales, sea lions.

The person also represents serious danger for this sea creature. In some East Asian countries, where the moonfish is considered a delicacy, it is caught on purpose, while in other places thousands of individuals die simply during industrial fishing for other fish.

Applied in Chinese medicine like a drug. Like the related fugu and abunawka, the tissues of the moonfish contain toxins.

It has no commercial value.

In captivity, sunfish do not adapt well and often die.

Zooplankton serves as food for moon fish. This is confirmed by studies of the stomachs of fish, in which crustaceans, small squids, leptocephals, ctenophores and even jellyfish were found. Scientists suggest that the moonfish can reach a fairly large depth.

moonfish considered very prolific, one female has up to 300 million eggs. Fish spawning occurs in the waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. Although this species usually spawns in the tropics, currents sometimes carry them into temperate zone warm waters.