The sharptail sunfish is a huge open-ocean fish of warm seas worldwide, including off the US East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. It looks like the familiar ocean sunfish, but the middle of its rear fin juts out in a sharp point, and it is one of the largest bony fishes, reaching about 11 ft (3.4 m) and 4,400 lb (2,000 kg). It is also called the sharptail mola.
Appearance
- Appearance
- A round, flattened, silvery-blue fish, often with silvery spots on the sides. Instead of a true tail it has a , a rudder-like fin band around the back end, with a triangular point sticking out in the middle. Its eyes sit farther forward than an ocean sunfish's, and its teeth are fused into a beak.
Look-alikes
Ocean sunfishMola mola
The ocean sunfish's rear fin edge is smoothly rounded or wavy, while the sharptail sunfish's has a pointed triangular lobe in the middle. The sharptail's eyes also sit closer to the front of the head.
Why they get mixed upBoth are huge, disk-shaped fish that seem to have no tail.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Open ocean
- Tropical and temperate seas
- Range
- Found around the world in tropical to temperate oceans. In the western Atlantic it ranges from Massachusetts Bay to the northern Gulf of Mexico, with Gulf records from Mississippi and Louisiana.
- Preferred conditions
- By day it mostly stays in water warmer than 68°F (20°C) at about 16–660 ft (5–200 m), diving repeatedly into colder, deeper water. At night it usually sits around 330–820 ft (100–250 m). It has been recorded as deep as 2,200 ft (670 m).
Behavior
- Diet
- Adults are thought to feed mostly on jellyfish and other soft-bodied drifting animals, plus some small fishes, crustaceans, and mollusks. Young fish eat bottom-dwelling worms and sponges.
- Activity
- It swims by sculling its tall dorsal and anal fins and steers with the clavus. A fish tagged in the Gulf of Mexico traveled about 6 miles (10 km) a day on average. Most US records are of fish stranded in shallow water by wind and currents.
Life cycle
- Reproduction
- It spawns eggs in open water and is among the most fertile fishes known. The tiny larvae are covered in large spines and look nothing like the adults.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
- Status
- Demand for sunfish dishes in eastern Taiwan has driven up catches since the early 2000s, and scientists are studying how this affects the population. FishBase rates its resilience as low, so heavy fishing could be a concern.
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- In eastern Taiwan, where a sunfish festival in Hualien County began in 2002, about 90% of the sunfish catch is this species.
- In 2026, researchers in South Korea reported the first known fossil of the sharptail sunfish's genus: a young fish about 3.5 in (9 cm) long, found in the Pohang Basin and kept in a museum collection for many years.
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