Sunfishes

Scientific name : Molidae

The family Molidae includes four species, belonging to three different genera.
One species, Ranzania laevis, can reach a maximum length of ninety centimetres, while the other three specie, Mola mola, Mola ramsayi and Masturus lanceolatus, have maximum sizes shifting between three meters and three meters and thirty centimetres: they represent some of the bigger and heaviest bony fishes of the World.

The body is short and deep or oblong, extremely compressed, and lacks of caudal fin; a leathery rudder-like lobe is a pseudo caudal fin. The dorsal and anal fins are triangular, very large, located close to the posterior part of the animal, while the pectoral fins are round and small. The skin is scale-less, leathery, grey to blue or brown in colour, sometimes with white spots.

They live in open waters of tropical and temperate seas, swimming lazily at the surface, and feed on pelagic invertebrates.