{"id":116616,"date":"2025-09-03T11:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T11:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116616\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T11:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T11:43:07","slug":"the-bizarre-physiology-of-the-sunfish-that-keeps-them-safe-from-predators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116616\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bizarre Physiology of the Sunfish That Keeps Them Safe From Predators"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The\u00a0ever-insightful<\/a>\u00a0animated series\u00a0Kurzgesagt<\/a> takes a colorful look at the Sunfish<\/a> (Mola), noting how their bizarre physiology keeps them safe from predators. These unique fish have an oddly short spine, a particularly bony body, a lack of dorsal fins, and can grow to an enormous size, all of which make them distasteful to larger fish.<\/p>\n

Once Mola reach a certain size most predatory fish\u00a0seem to avoid them, probably wrongfully assuming their size means that they could fight back \u2013 and because their outsides are too tough. But orcas, sharks and sea lions sometimes\u00a0 attack and take a bite \u2013 usually only to say: \u201cNo thank you, I prefer starving to death\u201d. Because for big predators sunfish\u00a0are watery, not very nutritious,\u00a0cartilage filled, parasite-ridden jelly donuts.<\/p>\n

Sunfish have winglike fins to travel across and down into the\u00a0midnight zone<\/a>,\u00a0where they forage for food and then come up to the surface to regain the heat lost in the frigid deep sea water. As the sunfish comes up, over 50 varieties of parasites attach themselves, however being they have a symbiotic relationship<\/a> with birds and other fish, they get their skin cleaned for the price of a meal.<\/p>\n

Mola frequently swim to the surface\u00a0 to float on their side like a pancake. They are sunbathing to warm up again from deep\u00a0cold dives \u2013 which is where\u00a0 they got their name from. But they also do it to present their\u00a0 body to seabirds like albatrosses. The birds start picking the parasites from\u00a0the Sunfish body \u2013 while smaller fish that\u00a0live near the surface take care of the bottom\u00a0half \u2013 cleaning them in exchange for a snack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The more they eat, the bigger they get, which again keeps them safe from predators.<\/p>\n

Luckily sunfish have the most\u00a0 rapid and extreme growth of any\u00a0animal \u2013 a larva can increase its weight\u00a0 60 million times from hatching to adult. \u2026If you grow fast you need\u00a0 a lot of nutritious food, \u2026Mola are generalized predators with\u00a0a focus on small and soft stuff. Their huge eyes can see incredibly\u00a0 well, especially in dim water, and they can sneak up on small prey\u00a0 or sift through drifting zooplankton. Mostly fish larvae, squids,\u00a0shrimps, mollusks, starfish,\u00a0 small crustaceans \u2013 really any\u00a0soft critter they can get to.<\/p>\n

Sunfish Cleaning<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0ever-insightful\u00a0animated series\u00a0Kurzgesagt takes a colorful look at the Sunfish (Mola), noting how their bizarre physiology keeps them safe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-116616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}