ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 BULLETIN /C fV 



X^tiona\ 



Published by the New York Zoological SocieU 



Vol. XXI 



NOVEMBER, 1918 



Number G 



THE GREAT OCEAN SUNEISH 



(Mola Mola) 

 By C. H. Townsend 



THE Aquarium had the unique privilege of 

 exhibiting a live ocean sunfish for a short 

 time on the third of June. Our hope of 

 making this wonderful guest a permanent mem- 

 ber of the Aquarium family faded quickly, and 

 on the following day the Museum of Natural 

 History had profited by our loss. 



The specimen, a small one of its kind, 

 weighed 165 pounds. Its length, from its 

 short snout to the posterior edge of its remark- 

 ably short tail, was nearly four feet, but this 

 measurement gives little idea of its size. 



It was caught on June 2 by two fishermen in 

 a motor boat, at the mussel beds about a mile 

 off Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, where the 

 water is seventeen feet deep. The fishermen 

 were using clam bait on sea bass hooks, and 

 the fish was hooked at the bottom. It took 

 nearly half an hour to bring the heavy fish to 

 the surface, when it was tied to the motor boat, 

 towed into Sheepshead Bay and made fast to 

 a wharf. 



The Aquarium collector arrived promptly, 

 spent several hours in a vain search for a well- 

 smack to transport it. and as a final resort tele- 

 phoned to the Aquarium for a tank and motor 

 truck. The long haul from Sheepshead Bay to 

 the Battery proved fatal, and for the hun- 

 dredth time the Aquarium records the loss of a 

 large and remarkable marine animal for sheer 

 lack of a suitable collecting boat. 



It is not often that an ocean sunfish small 

 enough for exhibition in a public aquarium be- 

 comes available, as it is one of the largest of 

 fishes. A specimen eight feet long, taken off 

 Redondo Beach, California, in June, 1893, 

 weighed 1 .800 pounds. The skin was mounted 



by Mr. T. Shooter of Los Angeles, and it is 

 said that the body of the fish was cut up and 

 weighed in sections. 



Dr. B. W. Evermann examined and described 

 a nine-foot sunfish brought into San Francisco 

 in May, 1915, which he believed to weigh not 

 more than 1,800 pounds. 



The American Museum of Natural History 

 has a mounted specimen, ten feet long, which 

 must have been much heavier than either of 

 those just mentioned. It was taken off Long 

 Beach, California, in May, 1911. 



There is a popular magazine reocrd of an 

 ocean sunfish killed in Australian waters which 

 was said to have been ten feet in length and 

 fourteen feet in vertical measurement. 



All of these were taken in Pacific waters. The 

 largest specimen recorded for the Atlantic was 

 eight feet long. It was taken off Cape Look- 

 out, North Carolina, in May, 1901. 



The measurements of the Aquarium specimen 

 were as follows: Length, three feet eleven 

 inches ; vertical measurement, five feet two inch- 

 es ; dorsal and anal, each one foot, seventeen 

 inches in length by nine inches in width ; height 

 of tail, twenty-two inches; length of tail at cen- 

 ter, six inches ; pectoral, six inches long by six 

 inches wide ; diameter of eye, two inches. 



The photographs at hand appear to show 

 that in the larger specimens of ocean sunfish 

 the dorsal and anal fins are relatively shorter 

 and broader than in fishes of smaller size, indi- 

 cating changes in proportions after the animal 

 reaches maturity. 



The ocean sunfish inhabits the warmer parts 

 of the Atlantic and Pacific, and in summer 

 wanders north as far as Massachusetts and 



