A giant sunfish believed to be the heaviest bony fish in the world has been discovered in the Azores archipelago of Portugal, weighing 2,744 kilograms.
Researchers said the animal was found dead, floating near Faial Island, in the center of the North Atlantic, in December.
Although found last year, details of the discovery were only recently published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
Studied by researchers from the Associação Naturalista do Atlântico and the University of the Azores for biometric and morphological data, both in Portugal, the fish was weighed, measured and tissue samples collected for DNA testing.
There are around 29,000 species of bony fish, which have a skeletal bone structure, making them the most fish species in the world.
The carcass of this animal found in Portugal is more than 400 kg heavier than the previous world record holder for bony fish – a 2,300 kg female giant sunfish caught in Kamogawa, Japan, in 1996.
The sunfish was weighed with a crane-scale dynamometer – a device designed to weigh loads normally lifted by a crane – after being lifted off the ground using a forklift.
The animal was 3.25 meters long and 3.59 meters tall. Measured around its center (middle of the body), it had a maximum width of 86 centimeters, the researchers said. Sex has not been determined.
José Nuno Gomes-Pereira, lead author of the article and a postdoctoral researcher at the Atlantic Naturalist Association, told CNN Tuesday that it is sad “to see the animal in this situation, as it must have been a king of the open sea”.
The “tremendously large” sunfish was buried in the Faial Island Natural Park, he added.
Gomes-Pereira said the discovery is a “sign that the oceans are still healthy enough to support the heaviest species in existence, but a warning for more conservation in terms of pollution and boat traffic near oceanic islands.”
The giant sunfish (Mola alexandrini) was first recognized as its own species in 2018 and is known to weigh twice as much as the second heaviest fish species, the ocean sunfish (Mola mola), according to with a press release from the Atlantic Naturalist Association, released on the 13th.
Gomes-Pereira said the dead sunfish had a “bruise” on its forehead, which may have caused the animal’s death. However, it is unknown whether the impact was pre- or post-mortem. The wound was encrusted with a red paint normally used to coat the keels of boats, the newspaper article added.
With little data available on large specimens such as the sunfish, the researchers believe that more studies are needed to understand their physiology and marine ecosystems in general.
The heaviest fish species in the world is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), according to Guinness World Records, with the heaviest having been found in Pakistan in 1949, weighing 21.5 tonnes.
Source: CNN Brasil
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