[Animals] An impressive 3-ton sunfish runs aground on the Atlantic coast, the largest so far

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Completely lifeless, the sunfish that ran aground in the Azores has the same weight as a blue whale at birth.
It happened in the Azores, a group of Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Sea. A 'majestic' sunfish woke up dead on the coast. Due to its impressive dimensions, it immediately caught the attention of local fishermen. It was then that the local authorities intervened. This was what they discovered.

A scaly giant with an 'airhead'

After measuring the animal, it turned out that the sunfish weighed around 3 tons. This weight is comparable to that of a baby blue whale, the largest marine mammals on the planet, according to records from the Marine Mammal Organization.

However, it is not the first time that the Azoreans know of this species. By contrast, a similar scaly giant was first sighted in December 2021. It was floating lifeless over the North Atlantic.

Immediately, the authorities recovered the body and took it to specialists from the Asociación Naturalista del Atlántico, a local non-profit organization. It was then that they determined that it was one more specimen of a Mola alexandrini, or southern sunfish: the largest vertebrate fish that exist in the world:

“OCCASIONALLY, IT MAY BE FOUND SUNBATHING ON ITS SIDE NEAR THE SURFACE,” DOCUMENTS THE NATURALIST DATABASE, “AND IS BELIEVED TO BE USED TO REWARM AFTER DIVING IN COLD WATER IN SEARCH OF PREY, RECHARGE ITS OXYGEN RESERVES AND ATTRACT THE SEAGULLS TO FREE THEM FROM PARASITES.”

Regarding the finding of the sunfish in October 2022, the researchers say that it is the "heaviest bony fish in the world", as described for the Journal of Fish Biology. The official measurement of the specimen is 3.6 meters high and 3.5 meters long.

José Nuno Gomes-Pereira, a marine biologist from the Atlantic Naturalist Association, assured that the photographs taken do not do justice to the beauty of the animal. On the contrary, the carcass is a truly "majestic specimen," he told Live Science in an email. Until now, it is unknown how many similar specimens will exist on the planet.

https://www.ngenespanol.com/animales/encalla-un-pez-luna-de-3-toneladas/