Rare 7-foot ‘sunbathing’ fish washes ashore in unexpected place

A hoodwinker sunfish that washed ashore on Gearhart Beach in Oregon on Monday (Picture: AP)

A huge round fish washed ashore far from the warm waters of the southern hemisphere where it was believed to live.

The 7.3-foot long hoodwinker sunfish turned up on Gearhart Beach on Oregon’s northern coast on June 3, according to the Seaside Aquarium.

Hoodwinkers are sometimes called ‘sunbathing’ fish, due to their habit of floating along the ocean’s surface.

The species was first discovered in 2017 and has been spotted just a handful of times off the coast of Australia, New Zealand, and across the Pacific.

‘Initially this large, strange looking fish was creating quite a stir on social media and though it was stormy, folks were flocking to the beach to see this unusual fish,’ an aquarium representative wrote on Facebook.

While the strange fish piqued the curiosity of people around the world, it is a particularly significant discovery for New Zealand-based marine biologist Marianne Nyegaard.

The hoodwinker sunfish was thought to only live in temperate waters in the southern hemisphere (Picture: AP)

Nyegaard – who published research on the hoodwinker sunfish, or Mola tecta, in 2017 – spotted something unique in the aquarium’s Facebook photo of the mammoth fish.

This led her to suspect the fish was not a common ocean sunfish, also known as Mola mola, but something more rare and mysterious.

Common ocean sunfish dive deep into cold water when they hunt. Because their bodies cannot regulate temperature, they heat themselves using the sun.

But certain features of hoodwinker sunfish set them apart. As ocean sunfish grow, their skin puckers and wrinkles. Hoodwinkers, on the other hand, remain completely smooth.

Until now, hoodwinker sunfish were believed to reside only in warm waters, but several of them have washed ashore recently between California and Alaska, where the ocean is much colder.

‘This fish, hiding in plain sight, has most likely been seen/washed ashore in the Pacific Northwest before but was mistaken for the more common, Mola mola,’ the aquarium said.

The hoodwinker sunfish has tough skin that makes it difficult for scavengers to puncture (Picture: AP)

On Nyegaard’s request, the aquarium took tissue samples, measurements and photos of the creature, which confirmed her suspicion about its identity.

The hoodwinker sunfish will likely remain for several weeks on Gearhart Beach, where locals and marine biology enthusiasts have flocked to inspect it.

Indeed, the aquarium is all for it.

‘It is a remarkable fish and the aquarium encourages people to go see it for themselves,’ a statement said.

The rare fish washed up shortly after another peculiar aquatic animal was seen in Missouri.

In May, an angler reeled in a northern snakehead, which is an invasive, air-breathing fish with a head similar to that of a snake.

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