“Amazing, Grandad – it looks just like Flat Teddy”, exclaimed my 11-year old granddaughter in response to a photo of the sunfish that recently washed up onto the beach at Kennett River.
Why… I thought to myself… had I failed to draw that most obvious of conclusions? After all, it wasn’t as if Flat Teddy and I were poorly acquainted. As evidence of our closeness, ‘FT’ and I had whiled away many hours together watching TV as FT’s best friend cuddled snugly between us. And, moreover, she was right! The beached sunfish did look exactly like Flat Teddy: the same colouring; the same ill-defined contouring; the same – not to put too fine a point on it – flatness.
To my mind, her quick response was an exemplar par excellence of the sweet innocence of youth.
Now and then, the ocean delivers up a glimpse of its’ diversity and strangeness, its’ beauty and awe, the wonder-world that dwells beneath. The bittersweet end of innocent life for the ‘Kennett sunfish’ was one such moment, stirring a turmoil of emotions: amazed astonishment blending with strange sadness.
Late on Sunday 26th July, I was emailed an unusual request. While walking his black Labrador on the Kennett beach, Michael Symes had found an immense lifeless creature strewn upon the shore. Michael appended a photograph and wondered if I might help with its identification.
Having previously seen some underwater footage of these strange but magnificent fish, I was able to identify it as a sunfish – a ‘Mola mola’ or common sunfish – which despite the epithet ‘common’, is actually now officially on the ‘threatened’ list. Wikipedia tells us that the mola is ‘one of the largest and heaviest of all bony fishes’… just look at its’ size when compared to the black Labrador dog [photograph courtesy: Michael Syme]. Its’ eye can be seen at top left.
Wikipedia goes on to say that the mature ocean sunfish has an average length of 1.8 m and a fin-to-fin length from top to bottom of 2.5 m. But, if you think that is huge, consider that their maximum size can be up to 3.3 m (11 feet) in length and 4.2 m (14 feet) across the fins! They can weigh up to 2,300 kg [closing in on 2 ½ tonnes]!
Ocean sunfish can live up to ten years in captivity – though it is tear-raising to think that we should [or would] keep such a magnificent creature captive. It is unknown how long they may last in their natural ocean habitat.
The skeletal mola is quite beautiful…
…but despite alerting the Museum of Victoria to the idea of collecting the body and exposing its’ skeleton, unfortunately the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic prevented them from accessing and acquiring the specimen. I had thought it might adorn the wall at the new LAAC, but it was relegated to the ‘too hard’ basket.
In July, I wrote of the extraordinary profusion of stranded salps at the high-tide mark along our Lorne beaches. As the Antarctic salps [and the sea jellies that are also beaching in abundance] are one of the primary food sources for sunfish, it is tempting to think that these, in turn, are attracting pelagic fish [including the sunfish] as a free and abundant source of food.
Anecdotally, our local amateur fisherman extraordinaire Keith Miller has reported a current abundance of fish, dolphin, and whale in Bass Strait… perhaps all attracted by the presence of the humble salp. Perhaps sunfish may be in that rich mix. If so, maybe we should expect to stumble on more, as lady sunfish care known to produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate – up to 300 million at a time – and it seems that adult sunfish have few natural predators other than for occasional attacks by orcas and sharks.
Now, as the Flat Teddy look-alike continues to moulder away on the beach under a relentless attack from the elements, we can but mourn its’ magnificence in life. But, with my Covid-19 sense of smell intact and with a soft sigh of relief, I can also be grateful that it was ‘FT’ and not the sunfish that shared my couch with my sleepy angel in front of TV.
John Agar
