Look What The Tide Dragged In...

You never quite know what the 100 billion tonnes of water moving into the Bay of Fundy on each tide is going to drag in...

Whale tour operator, Quoddy Link Marine in St Andrews, New Brunswick just reported seeing this rare ocean sunfish, Mola mola. Here is an excerpt from the Quoddy Whale blog:

These bizarre looking fish, from the same family as pufferfish, averages about 6 feet long and weighs 2200 lbs! The most obviously strange part is their shape, they look like a fish head without a tail. Through the course of evolution their caudal fin (tail) has disappeared and been replaced by a pseudo-fin called a clavus. Their diet consists mainly of jellyfish and to maintain their bulk they have to consume a very large amount. Ocean sunfish are covered in a slime instead of scales and they swim by a characteristic sculling motion of their dorsal and anal fins. They are the heaviest "bony" fish in the world, but their bodies are actually mostly comprised of cartilaginous tissues which is lighter than bone and can allow them to grow to such a large size (which is uneconomical for other bony fishes).

For a clearer photo and more info on the Mola mola, visit Wikipedia.