The Strangest Thing in the Sea: And Other Curious Creatures of the Deep
I look like a silvery moon with graceful wings Some people call me the Swimming Head Am I the strangest thing in the sea
The sunfish's huge dorsal fin is often mistaken for a shark's fin Pieces of kelp forests sometimes break off and float out to sea These kelp paddies give creatures shade and landing pads in the open ocean They often become cleaning stations where sunfish come to have parasites bitten off by seagulls and cleaner fishes Females can lay an astonishing 300,000,000 eggs at once Once they hatch the tiny fry recently hatched fish look like floating stars 3 mm
The sunfish's huge dorsal fin is often mistaken for a shark's fin Pieces of kelp forests sometimes break off and float out to sea These kelp paddies give creatures shade and landing pads in the open ocean They often become cleaning stations where sunfish come to have parasites bitten off by seagulls and cleaner fishes Females can lay an astonishing 300,000,000 eggs at once Once they hatch the tiny fry recently hatched fish look like floating stars 3 mm
I'M AN OCEAN SUNFISH I really am a swimming head My backbone is shorter than your pinky finger and I don't have a tail like most fish it's more of a frilly rudder to keep me swimming straight I dive down deep to eat jellyfish Nobody eats jellyfish like me I can eat over half my weight in jellyfish a day I eat enough to grow big bigger HUGE I start life smaller than a grain of rice and grow 60 million times bigger We sunfish are the heaviest bony fish in the sea We can weigh over 2000 kg 4400 lb. and grow as tall as an elephant I love to sunbathe at the surface to warm myself Floating also lets seagulls and cleaner fishes nip away all my pests and parasites I am covered with thousands of pests Nasty nuisances they are always biting me I'm a giant floating fish head but I'm not the strangest thing in the sea SIZE up to 3.5 m 11.5 ft long PREY jellyfish fish squid and crustaceans HABITAT warm open waters around the globe DEPTH surface to 800 m 2625 ft
