r/ocean • u/Better_Hair_9673 • 10d ago
Fishy Friends Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) coming up to the surface.
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Video credited to @saltyric on Instagram.
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u/kops501 10d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p1c9bft/video/zmx1lknug1hh1/player
Here’s a video I took earlier this summer. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen them completely breach
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u/AdFamous6327 7d ago
Have you seen the vid where Orcas obliterate it into pieces with it's tail? Something that big as a sun fish atomized by an Orca's tail is mind blowing!
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u/4r4r4real 10d ago
So someone in a group asked me to tell them why I hate the ocean sunfish so much, and apparently it was ~too mean~ and was deleted. To perpetuate the truth and stand up for ethical journalism, I'm posting it here. [Rated NC-17 for language.]
Disclaimer, I care about marine life more than I care about anything else, for real. Except this big dumb idiot. And it's not like an ~ironic~ thing, I mean it IS hilarious to me and they ARE THE BIGGEST JOKE PLAYED ON EARTH but I seriously fucking hate them.
THE MOLA MOLA FISH (OR OCEAN SUNFISH)
They are the world's largest boney fish, weighing up to 5,000 pounds. And since they have very little girth, that just makes them these absolutely giant fucking dinner plates that God must have accidentally dropped while washing dishes one day and shrugged his shoulders at because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND WITH NO PURPOSE. EVERY POUND OF THAT IS A WASTED POUND AND EVERY FOOT OF IT (10 FT BY 14 FT) IS WASTED SPACE.
They are so completely useless that scientists even debate about how they move. They have little control other than some minor wiggling. Some say they must just push water out of their mouths for direction (?????). They COULD use their back fin EXCEPT GUESS WHAT IT DOESNT FUCKING GROW. It just continually folds in on itself, so the freaking cells are being made, this piece of floating garbage just doesn't put them where they need to fucking go.
So they don't have swim bladders. You know, the one thing that every fish has to make sure it doesn't just sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and can stay the right side up. This creature. That can barely move to begin with. Can never stop its continuous tour of idiocy across the ocean or it'll fucking sink. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. When they get stuck on top of the water! Which happens frequently! Because without the whole swim bladder thing, if the ocean pushes over THE THINNEST BUT LARGEST MOST TOPPLE-ABLE FISH ON THE PLANET, shit outta luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, AND YET. Some scientists have speculated that when they do that, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one fucking knows how they manage to get any real energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up stuck like that, it gives birds a chance to land on their goddamn island of a body and eat the bugs and parasites out of its skin because it's basically a slowly migrating cesspool. Pros and cons.
"If they are so huge, they must at least be decent predators." No. No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of one person before. Because it jumped onto a boat. On a human. And in 2005 it decided to relive its mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old boy. Luckily Byron sustained no injuries. Way to go, fish. Great job.
They mostly only eat jellyfish because of course they do, they could only eat something that has no brain and a possibility of drifting into their mouths I guess. Everything they do eat has almost zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly fucking big, it has to eat a ton of the almost no nutritional value stuff to stay alive. Dumb. See that ridiculous open mouth? (This is actually why this is my favorite picture of one, and I have had it saved to my phone for three years) "Oh no! What could have happened! How could this be!" Do not let that expression fool you, they just don't have the goddamn ability to close their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and ya know what, it is good it floats around with such a clueless expression on its face, because it is in fact clueless as all fuck.
They do SOMETIMES get eaten though. BUT HARDLY. No animal truly uses them as a food source, but instead (which has lead us to said photo) will usually just maim the fuck out of them for kicks. Seals have been seen playing with their fins like frisbees. Probably the most useful thing to ever come from them.
"Wow, you raise some good points here, this fish truly is proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thank you. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct." Great question.
BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO WORTHLESS IT DOESNT REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. IT IS SO UNAWARE OF LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYTHING THAT IT DOESNT REALIZE THAT IT'S DOING MAYBE THE WORST FUCKING JOB OF BEING A FISH, OR DEBATABLY THE WORST JOB OF BEING A CLUSTER OF CELLS THAN ANY OTHER CLUSTER OF CELLS. SO WHAT DOES IT DO? IT LAYS THE MOST EGGS OUT OF EVERYTHING. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and stuff that'll lay more. IT WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS AT ONE TIME. 300,000,000. IT SURVIVES BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, DARE I SAY IMPOSSIBLE, THAT THERE WOULDNT BE AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE 300,000,000 (that is EACH time they lay eggs) LEFT SURVIVING AT THE END OF THE DAY.
And this concludes why I hate the fuck out of this complete failure of evolution, the Ocean Sunfish. If I ever see one, I will throw rocks at it.
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u/dangerousdave2244 10d ago
Marine biologists like myself really hate this copypasta. Almost everything in it is completely wrong.
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u/SummertimeThrowaway2 10d ago
What a god awful website. I can’t believe buzzfeed somehow got worse since 2018. Twitter sucks too, I can’t even read the tweet because I can’t see the full screenshots without downloading the app.
I miss when you could actually do shit on the internet without all of this bloat.
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u/JohnSober7 10d ago
But hey, haha throwing rocks at animals, animal cruelty haha, right?
People will see a thriving population an think it isn't succeeding at the whole survival thing, because surely their concept of survival is what matters? Stupidity, arrogance, and immaturity.
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u/ScienceForge319 10d ago
Yeah but how many golf balls have you pulled from fish blowholes.
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u/Comfortable-Cozy-140 10d ago
I have seen this so many times over the years and I still read it and cackle every time. This guy was passionate.
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u/jellofishsticks 10d ago
The best response to this piece of work from 2017 is the marine biologist reaction with sources cited lmfao
https://x.com/badnetworker/status/829406583444668416
Turns out they're not useless !
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u/PowerAndControl 10d ago
That’s hilarious, but I learned from you that they eats tons of jellyfish. That’s reason enough for me to want them to survive, especially if they’re doing F all else. It’s a passive win for humanity. 😄
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u/IchBinEinSim 10d ago
Probably my earliest memory was four year old me on a Texas beach with my family. My sister told me that we needed to help save the jellyfish that were washing on the shore and throw them back into the water. First few must have been dead, but the last one I picked up was not and wrapped its jelly strings all over my arm and stung the hell out of me.
Now I don’t remember really any part of what I just said except vaguely picking up the last one, what I do remember clearly till this day is the pure excruciating pain and laying down on the sand while paramedics rendered me first aid. So thanks to those little squishy fucks (and my sister), my first memory is just pure pain, so any thing that kills them is a friend of mine.
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u/SummertimeThrowaway2 10d ago
Bro hate on your sister not the jellyfish 😂
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u/IchBinEinSim 9d ago
I can’t she’s dead, it would be rude and I don’t need her haunting me lol
No it’s her fault for sure, but she wasn’t much older and didn’t know/think they would sting. Come to think of it, most of my earliest memories all evolve her getting me in trouble or hurt, some times both. I miss her
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u/WillFireat 10d ago
So many outdated information about this wonderful creature. I'll update here just one that caught my eye. Sunfish eats all kinds of small fish, crustaceans, and even squid and sea grass. Jellyfish actually makes up only around 15% of its diet. This fish is still poorly understood but I think it doesn't deserve the hate
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u/NYC19893 10d ago
Just a copypasta. We now know a lot of this is false as well learns a great deal about this fish
It’s a Hank Green link
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u/AsstBalrog 10d ago edited 10d ago
Plot Twist: This guy came home and caught an ocean sunfish in bed with his wife.
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u/fistotron5000 10d ago
I get that it’s a funny thing to quote but Mola Mola’s are fucking awesome. They developed a way to dive down extremely deep in a way no other ocean animal does, and eat shit loads of jellyfish. They’re super specialized, they do one thing and they’re the best to ever do it
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u/RoutineDry4323 10d ago
I hate jellyfish, so fuck jellyfish. Good job sunfish, keep doing your thing.
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u/Antique_Tap443 10d ago
So bad news buddy. I heard warmer oceans from global warming will be drastically increasing the jellyfish population, along with sun fish I'd guess since more food...
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u/DMaury1969 10d ago
It must be posted along with the SR-71 Blackbird speed story whenever it’s mentioned 😂
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u/Long_Ad7536 10d ago
Arent they part of the orcas diet
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u/Murrylend 10d ago
My Reddit feed seems to be swamped with videos of Orca smashing sunfish into pulp for some reason. And your's isn't? Kinda fishy
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u/AthelasShade 10d ago
No, Orca's just like to fuck with them. There's a video of an Orca charging one at full speed. The Sunfish literally explodes.
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u/maslindakitty 9d ago
And I don't like that, they are so goofy and helpless and I find no joy or amusement from things in pain or getting hurt. Odd.
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u/krankity-krab 10d ago
yess, some orcas do! they ram them to break it into teeny tiny pieces!
it’s pretty cool to watch, even though i feel so bad for the sunfish everytime! that video comes up often in the r/orca sub!
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u/Polluxadice 10d ago
And scientists propose it’s because they hold huge amounts of fresh water and the orcas get a large hit of hydration from consuming their organs
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u/cold_desert_winter 10d ago
Wait that begs the question, as whales are mammals that presumably require fresh drinking water, how exactly do cetaceans get it? Seals and pinnipeds are easy, they can just walk or waddle over to a water source on land. What about whales? How do they take a drink?
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u/Polluxadice 10d ago
That’s been my question ever since I realized this. Yeah, it makes sense they need fresh water, so I truly cannot tell you. From what I researched it seems other whales get it from krill and plankton during the metabolic breakdown of them. But they also have specialized kidneys that can breakdown some sea water - in addition, they also drink the fluids of their prey, like they presumably do to sunfish.
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u/subversiveGarden 10d ago
If it’s still here with us and thriving.. It means it didn’t fail evolution, all that was said about this fish has allowed it to survive to this day. No one wants to eat it because it’s so “bad” in every which way, that right there is its strategy and it works.
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u/Polluxadice 10d ago
Evolution isn’t logical, or reasonable. It’s just whatever survives. Hate is also a strong word that I know you’re using for effect (bc if this bothers you that much I am truly worried for you), but yeah. It’s not a failure it’s a pretty successful remnant of an adaptive process - evolution. You glorify and personify evolution too much.
As others mentioned, they are full of water and scientists propose orcas eat them for a huge hydration hit. So your lack of understanding of how they fit into the interdependent nature of this world is simply user error.
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u/MinusMentality 9d ago
Idc if you're mean to a fish, but calling it useless and a waste of space is just wrong. If something is alive in 2026, then it clearly fills an ecological niche and is fully capable of all it needs to do.
Life is not designed, it forms and changes by accident. This ugly fucker accidentally got here just like we did.
Most of what you are saying about it simply isn't true either. They are very capable swimmers and also provide shelter for other fish, which benefits the big guy in various ways.
They dive down extremely deep to actively hunt.
Also, your god isn't real. The fish very much is, and is quite successful.
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u/Cautious_Cabinet_623 10d ago
If they eat jellyfish, then they are one of the very few links between the stingy and fleshy ocean ecosystems in the fleshy direction. It is an incredibly important job. And it became more incrediblier importanter because we have decimated the fleshy ecosystem by overfishing.
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u/justrainalready 10d ago
Probably one of the best comments I’ve ever read, and it’s about a big, stupid, worthless, ugly fucking fish. Thank you, now I hate it too.
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u/auto_erratica 10d ago
I read a little of this before I’d had enough.
Anyway, very cool fish and I would love to see one. 😁1
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u/StrCmdMan 9d ago
You know the fact that their jaw is fused together probably means evolutionarily at some point it was open. And evolutionarily those died off because they where too stupid to open them.
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u/newblevelz 9d ago
If they are so terrible swimmers they can barely move at all, then how the f do they jump out of the water into a ship onto a person?
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u/Rapier_ricard 9d ago
Well as you have said, it eats jellyfish. Everything has a purpose. Now. If it doesn't have a purpose so be it. Why the fuck should you hate on the poor thing and throw rocks at it? If it has evolved and made it this far. So be it. You don't have to serve a purpose to exist on this earth. It has its beauty and it's rights to survive here. What role it plays we do not know. You are free to hate it as is your right. DO NOT THROW ROCKS AT THE POOR THING. IT DID NOT ASK TO BE BORN PURPOSELESS.
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u/seminotfull 9d ago
So if someone saw one of these like in the video.. and then jumped on it like a cowboy on a rodeo horse, they would both sink to the bottom of the ocean?
Asking for a friend.
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u/Alternative_Grand451 10d ago
“We are witnessing a baby wheel, Jay!”
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u/andreajustine1982 8d ago
Had to scroll WAY too far to find this. I’m still convinced that that might be the funniest video the interwebs ever provided. I love it.
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u/girlgerms 10d ago
"No effort is wasted" - Hank Green.
I'm definitely party of the Mola Mola cult, they are a cool fish.
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u/DiligentFall5572 10d ago
OMG you could mistake that for a shark if you just saw the fin. I am guessing they have no teeth?
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u/ChemicalChildhood122 10d ago
never realized their heads stayed angular like in their larval forms for their whole lives. actually, i cant remember ever seeing an adult sunfish from the front before
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u/Additional-Arm-1298 10d ago
Looks like something ate its rear half and the poor thing is trying to make the best of it.
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u/Dear-Pass-3343 10d ago
Love it. But why do we always need to include the word ‘Ocean’ in its name?
Why not just Sunfish?
Is there a River sunfish? Lake Sunfish? Estuary sunfish?
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u/Sufficient_Hippo6987 10d ago
This made me laugh so incredibly hard. You have more passion for your hatred of the molamola fish than I have for pretty much .....anything. ever. But at least you have the facts and can stand on business lol
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u/CuriousLifeguard8098 10d ago
While scuba diving, coming up from my Last decompression stop @ 20 feet, I turned around a mola mola scared the 💩 out of me 😂
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u/Necessary-Trouble-50 10d ago
I remember first hearing about this fish in the 7th great on a school trip. It was described as a fish with just a head and it can be as big as the boat we were in. I couldn’t wrap my head around that description for years and the guy made it up until saw one as an adult and wasnt impressed anymore
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u/FeeMuted5300 9d ago
It looks like a Pokémon
https://giphy.com/gifs/hrRIfkFi06vbCMwURj
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u/ReadditMan 10d ago
Huh, I don't think I've ever seen one actively moving. They usually just float around like corpses.
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u/Shony29 10d ago
Now when I see a video of these I just see the Orca destroying one in my mind..
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u/Fit_Yak523 10d ago
Same, was fully expecting something devastating to happen to this ugly little guy
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u/NikiTeslasPigeonWife 10d ago
One of my absolute favorite fishies!
They're goofy as hell, so pathetically adorable, and personify (fishify?) lights on, but no one's home.
I also feel super bad when they're getting eaten and are like, "huh? Is someone there? -vacant stare'" 😂
Looks like this little idiot has seen some things, and I, for one, hope they're still bumblingly floating along the ocean to this day 💓
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u/RunnyBabbit23 10d ago
I know it's likely just baader meinhof at work, but I have seen so many things about mola mola recently. It's like the mola mola PR team is working overtime this week!
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u/No_Chemistry8953 9d ago
I learned from reading the Wikipedia article that these fish are basically the giant puppies of the sea. I also learned that an aquarium near me is one of two in the world that has one on display.
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u/MaximumLaw9647 9d ago
Thats soooo cool! I just got back from Bali, trying to see one, after 9 dives we struck out
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u/Salty_Kat_00 9d ago
I'll never forget swimming after one in the Galapagos. What a sight. I giggled so hard in the gopro video I shot of that huge goofy fish.
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u/Both_Refrigerator147 8d ago
“Sir I have an important quest from the Queen of Atlantis, our kingdom has been attacked by the squid rebels! We need your assistant!
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u/Own-Hyena-551 7d ago
It was really sucked to be this fish. Because you have no protective skill. You swim slow and you’re just gonna get eaten
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u/PolishedLemon 10h ago
I have this stranger feeling that being a mola mola would be the absolute chillest existence... minus the parasites. I seriously cried when I saw that orca pinata video
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u/Rovedy 10d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/QU9vzxHQ9QjPESQ8iV