Bite-size Creachurs: Sunfish!

OOOO do you know what time it is??

Question: what weighs a ton (yet has teeny tiny 730 Mb DNA), lays up to 300,000,000 egs every mating season, and once leaped over a boat to land flat on a toddler? 

That's right!

Let's talk about the Mola Mola, the Ocean Sunfish.

Around 68 million years ago, evolution diverged a single species into two, very distinct animals: the Pufferfish and the Sunfish. The latter, which lost the spikes and enlarged quite dramatically, has become one of the largest bony fish in the sea, and target of many "evolution failure" jokes.

Part of the order Tetraodontiformes, the Sunfish will typically spends its days sunbathing close to the surface in the tropical waters of the world, and then diving to the colder deepths to hunt for, mostly, baby fish to eat (yeah they seem to really hate children).

Like I mentioned before, these things can be MASSIVE.

As you may or may not know, IGF-1 (or insulin-like growth factor 1) is the main hormone involved in human growth, and these guys pump it like crazy. 

Similarly to Goldfish, size is a favoured evolutionary trait for this species — the largest redorded reached a whopping 360kg (800lbs) in captivity.

As the Earth sees more and more years go by, the phenomenon of megafauna is seen less and less. The climate keeps getting hotter, and the predator-prey proportions in environments do not often reach the point that harbours an apex predator that can enlarge to Megalodon-ic proportions.

Yeah, they're gargantuan, but Sunfish are actually pretty chill dudes. Their behaviour towards divers is calm and friendly (the only instances of them hurting people are accidents caused by being HUGE), and their diet consists of small creatures.

So, you may ask yourself...

Why the hell is this guy so big, then?

Welp, the most I can tell you is that they live by the archaic rule of bigger body-less heat lost, which helps them hunt in the colder depths of the ocean.

Otherise

They're just big boys :D

Oh, want to see a baby Sunfish?

They might not look like how you expected them to, but, remember that Sunfish and Pufferfish belong to the same order, and nothing says "yeah, these guys shared a common ancestor" quite like their babies looking alike.

Tiny spikey pebble turns into BIG SLICE OF MEAT.

...

Okay.

Let's talk about

The picture

Sunfish are terrible at fight or flight; their weirdly-shaped fins make it hard to swim fast enough to escape predators, and as for fight... well, you can probably tell they don't pose much threat.

How are they alive still, then? 

Well, when you compare them to their size, their important organs are pretty small, and protected by a thick layer of blubber and skin.

As you can tell by the picture, that Sea Lion just took a huge bite of Sunfish fluff, not a drop of internal fluids wasted and not a bone in sight!

They're also very fast at regenerating themselves, so wounds like these are but a mere scratch.

Mola molas are currently vulnerable to extinction, mostly because of over-fishing for their meat.

You are NOT a Sea Lion taking a comically large bite of a Sunfish, DO NOT eat these guys !!!!