It may not be the most beautiful fish in the world, but the ocean sunfish, weighing in at more than two tons, qualifies as the largest. Here’s a fun video of something you don’t see every day, a sunfish swimming next to a diver. The diver’s not in any danger; a gentle giant, a sunfish will not attack humans.
A group of Nova Scotia boaters came across this particular sunfish while it was on the surface. As the writer for MTL Blog points out, it was just trying to chill and catch some rays. Sunfish do this frequently to regulate their body temperature after a deep cold-water dive.
Aside from their size – adults can weigh almost 5,000 pounds, making them the largest bony fish in the world – ocean sunfish are fairly odd looking, with an almost parrot-like mouth. They can be 14 feet tall and 10 feet long and their main body is flattened laterally.
When they’re not relaxing on the surface, sunfish spend most of their time slurping up jellyfish as their primary source of food. The problem is that sea jellies are nutritionally poor, so sunfish must consume huge amounts of them to maintain their size.
Sunfish have few natural enemies, but sea lions, killer whales and sharks have been to known to attack them. They are considered a delicacy in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. See the video:
