page_title: Ocean sunfish
section_title: Naming and taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Ocean sunfish / Naming and taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: English: Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) (Linnaeus, 1758)
context_page_description: The ocean sunfish or common mola is one of the heaviest known bony fishes in the world. Adults typically weigh between 247 and 1,000 kg. The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the world. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.
  Sunfish are generalist predators that consume largely small fish, fish larvae, squid, and crustaceans. Sea jellies and salps, once thought to be the primary prey of sunfish, make up only 15% of a sunfish's diet. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate, up to 300,000,000 at a time. Sunfish fry resemble miniature pufferfish, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin, and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish.
  Adult sunfish are vulnerable to few natural predators, but sea lions, killer whales, and sharks will consume them. Among humans, sunfish are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In the EU, regulations ban the sale of fish and fishery products derived from the family Molidae. Sunfish are frequently caught in gillnets.
context_section_description: Many of the sunfish's various names allude to its flattened shape. Its scientific name, mola, is Latin for "millstone", which the fish resembles because of its gray color, rough texture, and rounded body. Its common English name, sunfish, refers to the animal's habit of sunbathing at the surface of the water. The Dutch-, Portuguese-, French-, Spanish-, Catalan-, Italian-, Russian-, Greek- and German-language names, respectively maanvis, peixe lua, poisson lune, pez luna, peix lluna , pesce luna, рыба-луна, φεγγαρόψαρο and Mondfisch, mean "moon fish", in reference to its rounded shape. In German, the fish is also known as Schwimmender Kopf, or "swimming head". In Polish, it is named samogłów, meaning "head alone", because it has no true tail. In Swedish, Danish and Norwegian it is known as klumpfisk, in Dutch klompvis, in Finnish möhkäkala, all of which meaning "lump fish". The Chinese translation of its academic name is fān chē yú 翻車魚, meaning "toppled wheel fish".
  The ocean sunfish has various superseded binomial synonyms, and was originally classified in the pufferfish genus, as Tetraodon mola.
  It is now placed in its own genus, Mola, with three species: Mola mola, Mola tecta (hoodwinker sunfish)  and Mola alexandrini. The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, is the type species of the genus.
  The genus Mola belongs to the family Molidae. This family comprises three genera: Masturus, Mola and Ranzania. The common name "sunfish" without qualifier is used to describe the marine family Molidae as well as the freshwater sunfish in the family Centrarchidae which are unrelated to Molidae. On the other hand, the name "ocean sunfish" and "mola" refer only to the family Molidae.
  The family Molidae belongs to the order Tetraodontiformes, which includes pufferfish and filefish. It shares many traits common to members of this order, including the four fused teeth that form the characteristic beak and give the order its name (tetra=four, odous=tooth, and forma=shape). Indeed, sunfish fry resemble spiky pufferfish more than they resemble adult molas.
caption: The ocean sunfish is the heaviest of all bony fishes. It has a flattened body and is as tall as it is long.
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