{"id":718148,"date":"2026-07-30T00:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718148\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:09:08","slug":"battle-to-save-oddest-sea-creature-in-wales-ends-on-abersoch-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/718148\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle to save oddest sea creature in Wales ends on Abersoch beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the strangest creatures in the seas around Wales has been found washed up on an Abersoch beach. A visitor fought to save the Ocean Sunfish, carrying it back to the water, but it was later discovered dead on the sand.<\/p>\n

The creature looked so out of place that when a photo was posted online, some thought it was fake and AI-generated. Lacking scales and a tail, Sunfish are said to resemble giant dinner plates when idling at the surface soaking up the sun.<\/p>\n

Sunfish are not uncommon in Cardigan Bay but usually they prefer deeper waters. This summer\u2019s warm seas have brought them closer to shore in search of jellyfish, their favourite snack.<\/p>\n

Two have been sighted off Anglesey this month, lolling in the water and flapping large dorsal fins at the surface. More have been spotted along the west Wales coast, including a recent sighting off St Tudwal’s Islands near Abersoch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s thought this may be same one that, at the weekend, washed up on Traeth Trwyn y Fach just north of the Gwynedd resort. Online, a woman from Manchester described how she tried to save it the first time it stranded.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cIt was still alive and I carried it back into the sea as deep as I could. It appeared to swim away. I was really surprised how heavy it was – it was at least 4-5kg!<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so sad to see someone post later that day that it was back on the beach and was dead.\u201d Get all the latest Gwynedd news<\/a> by signing up to our newsletter – sent every Tuesday<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A giant Ocean Sunfish washed up on Victoria\u2019s south-west coast in Australia beach(Image: BBC)<\/p>\n

Sea Trust Wales said that, in recent weeks, it has received a spate of sightings of the \u201cawesome Ocean giants\u201d. Most were juveniles, about the size of dustbin lids: adults grow to 1,000kg and a few have been measured three times this weight.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, larger specimens are seen closer to home. Online, a sailing enthusiast said: \u201cA number of years ago one swam passed my stationary boat on a calm flat sea outside Trefor in Caernarfon Bay \u2013 its top fin was just short of a metre out of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dead Abersoch Sunfish was photographed by Gray Eaton, a Cheshire artist and photographer who showcases his work as Graysarts<\/a>. He said birds had eaten the creature\u2019s eyes but otherwise there were no sign of wounds: the ponderous fish is susceptible to propeller injuries.<\/p>\n

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Abersoch.com, an online guide to the area, said it was an \u201cextraordinary\u201d visitor, adding: \u201cAlthough they do occasionally make their way into UK waters during the warmer months, it\u2019s still quite unusual to see one around the Ll\u0177n Peninsula<\/a>, and even rarer to find one ashore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunfish are the world\u2019s heaviest bony fish, growing to an astonishing 80m times its birth size. Yet it is such a poor swimmer that predators eat it alive, fins still flapping and eyes rolling in puzzlement.<\/p>\n

Orcas have been filmed holding Sunfish while others smash into them so hard they explode into thousands of pieces. A paper published this month suggests this \u201cram-to-fragment\u201d behaviour could be a form of Orca play, or else a way of helping youngsters to feed.<\/p>\n

By all accounts, Sunfish are so vulnerable to predation that they ought to be extinct. Yet they have a superpower that enables them to survive: the females are prolific breeders, each capable of carrying up to 300m eggs, more than any other animal on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the strangest creatures in the seas around Wales has been found washed up on an Abersoch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[237620,12956,134022,96456,90,56,54,55,4407,5256],"class_list":["post-718148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-abersoch","tag-gwynedd","tag-llyn-peninsula","tag-north-wales-beaches","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-and-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}