Large numbers of ocean sunfish (Mola mola) have shown up in waters off Taitung County in a rare phenomenon that experts say could be in response to low temperatures in the waters around Japan.
A large number of the fish began to converge in the Chengkung area off the Taitung coast on Monday.
“I thought I had led my tour members to the wrong harbor,” a tour guide surnamed Chen (陳) said when she saw the area thick with the fish.
Photo: CNA / National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium
She was told by one fisherman that he has been fishing for four decades and it was the first time he had seen so many of the rare fish.
Wu Yun-hui (吳允暉), an assistant researcher at the Council of Agriculture’s Eastern Marine Biology Research Center of the Fisheries Research Institute, said he has been researching the fish for two years and this was the first time he has witnessed them in such great numbers.
About 250 of the huge fish were spotted on Monday and another 70 on Tuesday, mostly small-sized and weighing between 30kg and 50kg.
They are the world’s heaviest-known bony fish, with an average adult weight of about 1,000kg.
Center director Ho Yuan-hsing (何源興) said the sunfish is migratory and that the fish’s movement is mainly dependent on temperature, food resources and spawning.
He said the large numbers are probably due to low temperatures in Japanese waters and large numbers of jellyfish, its staple diet, in Taiwanese waters.
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