Mola Distribution off North Carolina Coast 79 



fathoms deep, and one December record is from 500 fathoms. Except 

 for the December fish, individuals were not encountered beyond the 

 inner edge of the continental shelf (100 fathoms), although nearly half 

 of our survey time was spent in these deeper waters. Additionally, 

 Charles Manooch, National Marine Fisheries Laboratory, Beaufort, 

 informed me that all of the 15 Mola seen by him were between 20 and 

 30 miles from shore and in water 17 to 25 fathoms deep. Off South 

 Carolina, ocean sunfish (species not determined) have been reported 

 over water about 42 m (23 fathoms) deep (Anderson and Cupka 1973). 

 Interestingly, Lee and Palmer (1980) documented the regular ocurrence 

 of leatherback turtles, Dermochelys coriacea, another reputed coelen- 

 terate feeder, to be restricted, or nearly so, to shallow waters inshore of 

 the 100-fathom contour. 



Manooch reported an adult M. mola in Core Sound (Harkers 

 Island, fall date not recorded), and the site of Brimley's (1939) Swans- 

 boro record is Bogue Sound. Although Myers and Wales (1930) noted 

 that young individuals were of regular occurrence during the summer in 

 Monterey Bay, California, I am not aware of any records from estuarine 

 bays. There are no reports of Mola, for example, in the Chesapeake 

 Bay. However, Steve Ross (pers. comm.) captured a single adult from 

 near the mouth (< 20 ppt) of the Neuse River near Long Creek on 16 

 May 1980 in a gill net. This is the only truly estuarine occurrence of 

 which I am aware. 



Water Temperature'. Ocean surface temperatures were recorded for 

 20 of my 60 North Carolina sightings at sea, and temperature approxi- 

 mations (±2 °C) are possible for 13 others based on temperatures 

 recorded at other locations near the sighting. The coldest water in which 

 I encountered M. mola was 6.8 °C on 16 March 1984, which was also 

 the date of the earliest spring record. The warmest water was 29.4 °C on 

 13 June 1979, the date of the latest spring sighting. Most encounters 

 were at temperatures between 10 and 18 °C. On all dates a surface 

 temperature gradient was recorded, with coolest waters generally closest 

 to land and warmest waters within the Gulf Stream. Seasonal and ther- 

 mal distributions (Fig. 1) suggest that, although maximum and min- 

 imum temperatures may be critical, these fish are not simply moving 

 into deeper, warmer waters during cool periods, or into cooler inshore 

 waters during warm seasons. Similar findings were reported for several 

 species of marine turtles off the North Carolina coast (Lee and Palmer 

 1980). 



Time of Day for "Sunning": Surface "sunning" behavior was noted 

 for most periods of the day, the earliest at 0732 EST and the latest at 

 1432. Additionally, several sunfish were seen in "mid- to late after- 

 noon," but exact times were not recorded. 



Miscellaneous: All sunfish observed were solitary, although on sev- 

 eral occasions individuals were found within half a mile of each other. 



