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Strange Fish(?) That Wash Ashore

punychicken

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Big fish

A sunfish that washed up near the base of Farewell Spit is a monster with a strange sense of timing, a marine expert says.

The 3m sunfish was discovered at Taupata Creek near Puponga by passers-by on Sunday.

Department of Conservation worker and Pakawau resident Heather Gunn said she was driving past when she saw "a big lump" on the beach, which she initially thought to be a whale.

"It looked fresh. It did not smell and it had not been pecked over."

A sunfish washed up on Farewell Spit at Christmas 2002, and another was washed up on Pakawau Beach about four years ago.

DOC marine specialist Andrew Baxter said the most recent sunfish discovery was "a real oddity" because of the time of year.

"The literature says they can be found in New Zealand's north-eastern waters in warm summers, and they can stray south of Cook Strait. But this is definitely not a warm summer, rather a cold spring."

Mr Baxter said sunfish could grow up to 3m long and weigh up to a tonne.

After seeing a photograph of the sunfish, Mr Baxter estimated it was between 2m and 3m long.
 
That is one weird looking fish.

sunfish.jpg




http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2004/10/img_ ... p_222.html
 
Looks almost human. The poor thing [for both being dead and looking human...]
 
Strangey. Dish-shaped.
 
It's a Pac-Man caught in the wild.
 
Aren't they the most prolific egglayers of all the fishy kingdom?
 
It's a Ninth Year and I'm sure I taught it last year. There was a whole school like that. :splat:
 
Summer sun brings sunfish shoal

Giant ocean sunfish have been spotted off the Cornish coast in a survey of marine life.
Nineteen sunfish, generally thought to be a warm-water species, were spotted off the south-western tip of Cornwall.

Sunfish feed mainly on jellyfish and are thought to be following anticipated jellyfish blooms as the summer sea temperatures rise.

The same survey, carried out last Thursday, also detected basking sharks, porpoises, seals and jellyfish.

'Fantastic surprise'

Previous surveys by the University of Exeter's School of Biosciences, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and Cornwall Wildlife Trust have also seen bottlenose and common dolphins.

"This sudden influx of these beautiful, giant fish was a fantastic surprise," said Dr Brendan Godley, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter Cornwall Campus.

"We only spotted the sunfish lying on their side at the surface so there may have been more below the waves.

"This is the first time we have spotted them during our surveys, and we think they have arrived here in order to take advantage of anticipated jellyfish blooms as the summer sea temperatures rise."

The monthly aerial surveys, funded by the European Social Fund with additional support from the MCS, began in January.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/5212392.stm
 
You would have thought that oarfishes are so often the culprit in these mystery fish photos, identifying them and solving the mystery would be a piece of cake. Apparently not.
 
Having looked at these better pictures it looks like a shark, probobly a basking shark. The horns are probobly the cartalligeous rods from the snout and in one shot i can see what looks like claspers, modified fins male shaks use in mating.
 
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It's definitely not a Coelacanth.

The mouth structure and the row of dorsal spines point to its being a Queensland groper (aka giant grouper) - a species known to grow even larger and heavier than this specimen.
 
It's definitely not a Coelacanth.

The mouth structure and the row of dorsal spines point to its being a Queensland groper (aka giant grouper) - a species known to grow even larger and heavier than this specimen.

Yep. I think you're right.
Another potential fortean event bites the dust (along with the Patterson-Gimlin man-in-a-gorilla-suit, Cumberland "spaceman" in her blue dress, Goddard's timeslip, the Baghdad batteries etc.).
 
Is it really called a 'Queensland Groper', this isn't a typo ? ...

It's really called 'Queensland Groper' in Australia. Elsewhere the species is more commonly called the 'Giant Grouper'.

Multiple fish species are labeled 'groper' (rather than 'grouper') in Australia.
 
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