Sunfish Breaching in Algoa Bay
By Lloyd Edwards

1. News

After cruising the waters of Algoa Bay for the last 40 years, one would have thought that I had seen it all . . . not so! I was piloting our trusty catamaran “My Bru”, from The Rij Banks about 30km from port towards what is left of the African Penguins on St Croix Island. The water was teaming with bait fish and pelagic seabirds.

About half way to the islands, something breaching right in front of the boat. Our lookout on the crow’s nest, Sean Pike, was at a loss for words. To me it could have been a Bryde’s whale or shark. It then breached a further six times and its identity became known. The massive size, oblong body, the appearance of no tail and long and stiff dorsal and anal fins gave it away.

It was none other than the largest bony fish in the ocean, a Sunfish or Mola mola. The largest specimen ever recorded was a 3.25m and 2 744kg individual, caught off Faial Island in the Azores in 2021. The fish was named by Swedish Naturalist Carl Linnaeus. He noticed that they liked to bask in the sun and resembled a large grey millstone or Mola, as it is known in Latin.

One wonders what makes this animal breach? Well, it certainly is not due to feeding, as its main jellyfish prey is not a speedy animal to say the least!! Unlike whales and dolphins, it would not be for communication or fun. A logical reason would be for it to dislodge some of the many parasites found on its skin. Kelp gulls have even been observed pecking off these parasites on the surface.

We see them quite often in Algoa Bay, usually never closer than 10km to the shore. It is surprising that we see them at all, as commercial fishing kills an estimated 34 000 of these amazing animals per year! They are not targeted by humans, as they are terrible eating! Some are caught for use in Eastern medicines. Products derived from Sunfish are banned in the Western world, as they contain harmful toxins.

The reason they like basking in the sun on their sides is to heat up. They can dive to very cold water up to 600m and get extremely cold. They heat up by exposing as much of their body as possible to the sun. This is why they only feed in the daytime!

They have massive eyes, which allows them to see prey from much further away than sharks and dolphins. They are also apt at feeding in low light conditions. Their diet includes jellyfish and salps, and when in shallow water, benthic organisms. These are caught with small teeth that have been fused into a parrot like beak, similar to squid.

Unlike other bony fish, they do not have a swim bladder that functions as a buoyancy regulator. Instead, they have a layer of jelly under the skin that makes them neutrally buoyant and probably insulates them against the cold water. It is this foul-tasting jelly and slimy skin that prevents them ending up on our dining tables and thus helps preserve the species!

They are occasionally preyed upon by killer whales, pinnipeds and various shark species and especially the great white shark. More serious dangers are human activities and environmental changes. Plastic pollution takes a huge toll, as it looks like their favourite meal of jellyfish. When are companies like Coca-Cola, who have been voted the largest plastic polluter on the planet in the last five years, ever going to learn that their greed for money is slowly destroying our beautiful planet?

Their breeding cycles are not fully understood, although we know that females are capable of laying 300 million eggs! The 2mm long larvae hatch and form schools for protection. They have small spines and a tail which is absorbed during metamorphosis. Once they develop into fry, they leave the school and have to fend for themselves.

Their distribution is circumglobal in tropical and temperate waters. They are absent from the Polar regions. There are five species of the Mola family or genus in our oceans. They do migrate, following the seasonal distribution of the jellyfish populations, usually only for relatively short distances. Their skin is really tough and covered with small denticles, and like sharks, is probably help evade the friction caused in water, thus allowing greater locomotion. They often look a blueish colour. Females can live up to 23 years old, while males expire at 16.

(read more about the SUNFISH Project )

This was the 6th breach in a row. Taken with a Nikon Z9, ISO 320, 70mm, f/11 and 1/1250th second.

All my previous images were soft . . . luckily the last two were sharp, otherwise I would have been pretty bleak. Always have your camera out of its bag, settings checked and where you can grab in a flash!

This is how we normally see them, close to the surface.

Normally the first thing you see is the dorsal fin protruding about the surface of the water.