Moonfish (Mola Mola): 5 Mysterious Facts You Didn’t Know, is just some kind of freak of nature. It’s huge and round, as if someone took a regular fish, cut off its tail and said, “Okay, this will do!” And it will do – the mola-mola lives perfectly well without a normal tail, it just flaps its fins like a bird flaps its wings.
Where does the Moonfish live?
These giants love warm waters, so you can meet them in the tropical and temperate zones of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. They hang out especially often near the surface, basking in the sun – hence, by the way, the name. Imagine: you are sailing on a boat, and next to you lies a pancake fish, as if it decided to fry.
Why is there little news about her?
Well, first of all, it is not particularly useful to humans. Its meat is not popular (in Europe it is generally prohibited for sale), and it is difficult to catch – its body is too strange. And secondly, although the Moonfish grow to the size of a car, seeing it in the wild is luck. So if you meet it – consider yourself lucky!
5 Mysterious Facts You Didn’t Know About Mola Mola
- Mola-mola are huge!
Imagine a fish weighing 2-3 tons! It’s like a minivan, only in water. And the baby mola-mola are tiny – literally a couple of millimeters. How this water monster grows from such a baby is a mystery. - Clumsy but resilient
It seems that the мola-mola swim like a drunk tourist, but no – despite its strange shape, it can cover hundreds of kilometers. True, its speed is so-so, but no one bothers it much: predators like sharks prefer simpler prey. - L oves “spa treatments”
The Moonfish often hangs near the surface for a reason – it comes to “clean”. Various cleaner fish and even seagulls (!) happily eat parasites off it. Yes, sometimes seagulls literally peck it alive, but it seems that the mola-mole is fine. - Can Jump Out of the Water
Have you ever seen whales jump out of the water? Well, this carcass can do it too! Sometimes, to get rid of parasites, the Moonfish jumps several meters into the air and flops back down. This is probably the loudest “plop” in the ocean. - She eats jellyfish and is not afraid of their poison.
The diet of the mola-mola is peculiar – mainly jellyfish, which, as we know, consist almost entirely of water. So you need to eat a lot of them. Question: what’s tasty about it? Riddle.
What is her intelligence?
Well, no offense, but the moonfish not a genius of the underwater world. It has a brain the size of a walnut – and weighs a couple of tons! In general, if there was an IQ test for fish, the mola mola would hardly pass it. But it doesn’t need to: it lives quietly, without straining itself, and just floats through life.
Is mola mola dangerous to humans?
Actually, no. This giant doesn’t bother anyone, it doesn’t even really have teeth – everything it eats, it just sucks in. But if you suddenly find yourself in the water next to it, it’s best to keep your distance. Why? Simply because if it accidentally crashes into you (and it can, because its attention span is… well, so-so), you’ll definitely be in pain.
Is anyone threatening her?
Despite its size, the Moonfish has enemies. The most important ones are sharks, killer whales and sea lions. The latter even play some cruel games with it: they can bite off its fin and leave it to die. Well, nature… it is not always kind.
Another enemy is man. No, they are not specifically hunted, but they often get caught in fishing nets. And this is a real problem: the mola-mola cannot back up, so if it gets stuck, that’s it, the end.
The Moonfish is pure absurdity, but that’s its charm. It’s huge, ridiculous, slow, but it lives in the ocean, is in no hurry, eats jellyfish and periodically sunbathes. A kind of Zen philosophy in fish form.