A 7.3-foot specimen of a gigantic fish that can grow to over two tons has washed up along a seaside town in Oregon — far north of the warm waters it usually calls home.
Gearhart marine scientists identified the giant fish as a ‘hoodwinker sunfish,’ a new species only discovered in 2017 because its appearance is deceptively similar to the ‘ocean sunfish.’
Representatives of Gearhart’s Seaside Aquarium said the beached hoodwinker ‘will probably remain for a few more days, maybe weeks,’ as the tough skin of this sea creature’s carcass tends to make it nearly impervious to scavengers.
‘Dubbed a new species hiding in plain sight, it was genetic sampling and eventual observation that contributed to its finding,’ the aquarium noted in a statement.
A 7.3-foot specimen of a gigantic ‘hoodwinker sunfish,’ which can grow over two tons, has washed up along a seaside town in Oregon – far north of the warm waters it usually calls home
These images, provided by Seaside Aquarium, shows the hoodwinker sunfish that washed ashore on June 3, 2024, along the beach in Gearhart, Oregon
The massive rare fish has drawn crowds of onlookers intrigued by the unusual sight.
‘This large, strange looking fish was creating quite a stir on social media and though it was stormy folks were flocking to the beach to see this unusual fish,’ a Seaside Aquarium representative posted on Facebook.
Photos taken by aquarium staff documented the hoodwinker’s flat, round and mottled gray appearance as the beached fish rested on its side in the sand.
Photos of the large dead fish alongside one person and a pickup truck were also taken, giving a better sense of scale to the sunfish’s incredible size.
The social media frenzy over the beached creature, led to the Danish marine biologist who first discovered the hoodwinker species roughly seven years ago to reach out in an effort to help confirm what kind of sunfish had washed ashore.
Photos taken by aquarium staff documented the hoodwinker’s flat, round and mottled gray appearance as the beached fish rested on its side in the sand
Photos of the large dead fish alongside one person and a pickup truck were also taken, giving a better sense of scale to this hoodwinker sunfish’s incredible size
New Zealand-based marine biologist Dr Marianne Nyegaard requested ‘samples for genetics,’ according to the aquarium, which supplied ‘more photographs, measurements, and tissue samples.’
But through just the photographs alone, Dr Nyegaard was able to confirm that it was not only a hoodwinker sunfish, but may be the largest specimen of it ever sampled.
In research published in 2017, Nyegaard discovered through genetic sampling and observation that the hoodwinker sunfish, or ‘Mola tecta,’ was a different species than the ocean sunfish, ‘Mola mola.’
‘Tecta’ in Latin means hidden or disguised, referring to a new species that had been hiding in plain sight.
‘Sunfish aren’t particularly rare, but it’s tricky to study them as they simply live in parts of the ocean most humans don’t go,’ according to New Zealand-based marine biologist Dr Marianne Nyegaard, who was the first to discover the hoodwinker species in 2017
Speaking to The Conversation, shortly after her 2017 discovery, Dr Nyegaard confessed that ‘unravelling this mystery has been a huge puzzle.’
‘Sunfish are huge, largely solitary and fairly elusive,’ she explained, ‘so you can’t just go out and sample a heap of them to study.’
‘Sunfish aren’t particularly rare, but it’s tricky to study them as they simply live in parts of the ocean most humans don’t go,’ she noted.
‘They dive hundreds of meters to feed, and then rise to the surface to bask in the sun on their sides, hence their name.’
In recent years, a few more rare cases have emerged of hoodwinker sunfish washing up on the coasts of California and Alaska, both farther from their more tropical or temperate ocean homes than previously thought possible.
‘This fish, hiding in plain sight, has most likely been seen [or] washed ashore in the Pacific Northwest before,’ Gearhart’s Seaside Aquarium said, ‘but was mistaken for the more common, Mola mola.’
