{"id":396041,"date":"2026-01-08T22:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T22:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396041\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T22:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T22:32:08","slug":"alien-like-sea-creature-stuns-surfers-washes-ashore-in-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396041\/","title":{"rendered":"Alien-like sea creature stuns surfers, washes ashore in San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An alien-like Mola mola surprised surfers as it surfaced along the San Diego coastline, ultimately dying and washing ashore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cA rare Mola mola (ocean sunfish) washed up on our shore at Cardiff State Beach today,\u201d San Diego State Lifeguards stated Wednesday via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTOrreMgQEC\/?img_index=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s the heaviest bony fish on earth and can weigh over 2,000 lbs. It mostly snacks on jellyfish and loves sunbathing on the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Mola mola in wave in north San Diego.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"576\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5b94764ef71ca7330d2ae6ab83bb04c1.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mola mola in wave in north San Diego.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Images show the sunfish alongside a lifeguard buoy on the beach, and in the surf before it stranded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/enormous-dinosaur-bird-lands-tour-172555803.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:ALSO: Enormous, dinosaur-like bird lands on tour boat in Africa;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ALSO: Enormous, dinosaur-like bird lands on tour boat in Africa<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A top comment: \u201cAw, watched it float down the coast from Swamis, barely alive. It sat under a few surfers at dawn but once it floated into the impact zone I knew it was dying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cLots of people thought the flopping dorsal fin was a shark. Beautiful to see it close up but too bad it died.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mola molas, more typically encountered in deep, offshore waters, are strange-looking creatures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montereybayaquarium.org\/animals\/animals-a-to-z\/ocean-sunfish\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Monterey Bay Aquarium;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Monterey Bay Aquarium<\/a>: \u201cThe ocean sunfish (Mola mola) looks like the invention of a mad scientist. Huge and flat, this silvery-gray fish has a tiny mouth and big eyes that vanish into an even bigger body with a truncated tail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Surfer eyes Mola mola off San Diego beach.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"576\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e3d0fbf35f01085bc8e88bcb7db6963a.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Surfer eyes Mola mola off San Diego beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The aquarium added that ocean sunfish can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They\u2019re the largest bony fishes on the planet, as noted, in a category that does not include sharks and rays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally appeared on For The Win: <a href=\"https:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/outdoors\/2026\/01\/08\/alien-like-mola-mola-sunfish-stuns-surfers-san-diego\/88084691007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Alien-like Mola mola stuns surfers, washes ashore in San Diego;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Alien-like Mola mola stuns surfers, washes ashore in San Diego<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An alien-like Mola mola surprised surfers as it surfaced along the San Diego coastline, ultimately dying and washing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[191499,191498,7155,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-396041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-cardiff-state-beach","9":"tag-mola-mola","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}