The Cold Water Fish That Looks Dead, But Isn’t

0:00 Imagine seeing something the size of a car floating on its side in the ocean. It looks dead. It looks broken even. And somehow it's one of the largest fish on Earth. This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you care about staying informed on the ocean every single weekday, hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app so you do not miss tomorrow's story. This week, we are gonna be talking about all the wonderful things that cold water brings, especially when we talk about species. Today, we are gonna be focusing in on the fascinating species called the mola mola, or, uh, the ocean sunfish. Tomorrow, we're gonna be talking about one of my favorite types of sharks that's involved in Canada.

0:43 We're going to focus a lot on Canadian waters. And of course, we're gonna talk about leatherback sea turtle, which we get here every once in a while. And then we're gonna be talking about some fun things that I like to do. One of the best things I like to do is jumping from tide pool to tide pool to see what's in them. That's all gonna be on this week's episode. And then we interview Kirsty Burnett, who's a coworker of mine at Pisces Oceans, which is the sponsor of this episode, by the way. We're gonna be talking about her love for the ocean, and especially in temperate, colder waters, and how she grew up around it, how she did studies around it, and how she loves being in it. Whether you're under it or above it, you can still enjoy cold water species. And we're doing this as a part of celebrating Oceans Day, which is, technically June 8th.

1:25 It'll be a week from today, but we're gonna be talking about cold water for the next two weeks. It's going to be a lot of fun. This is the first time in a while that I'm celebrating Oceans Day working with an oceans team, and it's gonna be a lot of fun. But let's get into today, 'cause today we're gonna be answering the question that perfectly captures why cold water oceans are so fascinating. Why does one of the strangest fish on Earth spend part of its life in Canadian cold waters? And of course, what can this bizarre animal teach us about the ocean? So if you've never seen a sunfish before, you're not alone. Marine biologist Kirsty Burnett, who I talked to on Friday, says it's one of those animals that people simply don't believe it exists until they see a picture of it.

2:09 And to be honest, she's right. The ocean sunfish, also known as the mola mola, looked like someone designed a fish and forgot to finish it, to be honest. It has this giant flattened body, this tiny, tiny little mouth. In fact, it looks kinda like a baby if you really look at it. No obvious tail, and it often floats sideways on ocean surface, which is kind of interesting. The first time I saw one, I was in Nova Scotia. I honestly thought something was wrong with it. I thought it was a dead animal. And so when I went to the surface, like we were in a boat, we went over there just to see what it was, it started to move. And I realized I was looking at one of the weirdest animals I'd ever seen, the ocean sunfish, or the Mola mola.

2:49 And what's even stranger is how successful these fish are. The ocean sunfish can weigh more than a ton. They are among the heaviest bony fish on the planet. And despite looking awkward, they're found throughout the oceans around the world, including cold temperate waters like those off of Atlantic Canada, where I first spotted one. Now, here's where things get a little interesting. For years, scientists wondered why sunfish spend so much time at the surface. Are they trying to get a tan? Are they sunbathing? Are they warming up? Like, why would a fish that can dive hundreds of meters deep suddenly lie sideways in the sun. A 2019 study led by Professor Takashi Nakamura used advanced tracking tags to follow ocean sunfish movements and discovered that these fish regularly dive into colder, darker waters while searching for food.

3:38 After those dives, they often return to the surface, likely helping them warm up again before they dive their next excursion, I guess. In other words, that strange floating behavior isn't random. It's part of their survival strategy. The fish is essentially recharging. It's like almost like a battery. And suddenly what looks bizarre actually makes perfect sense. But that still doesn't answer the big question. Why come to cold water at all? Really, the answer is food. Cold water oceans may not have coral reefs, they may not have clear crystal tropical water, but they are incredibly productive. I think sometimes that gets missed a lot with how important they are.

4:19 Nutrients from deeper water fuel plankton blooms. Those plankton support jellyfish, and jellyfish happen to be one of the favorite foods of the ocean sunfish. That's why cold oceans can attract so many animals. Whales come here, leatherback sea turtles come here, sea birds come here, and sunfish come here too. They're all following the food. A 2001 study led by Dr. Marianne Nyegaard found that ocean sunfish often concentrate in highly productive feeding areas where prey is abundant, reinforcing the idea that these giant fish are closely linked to productive systems. That means when you see a sunfish off Nova Scotia, you're not just seeing a weird fish, you're seeing evidence of a healthy food web.

5:03 Imagine that, seeing this massive animal just like almost look like it's dead at the surface thinking, " No, that's a dead fish. No, actually, that's not a dead fish. That's a fish that's alive, that's recharging to go back down in these productive waters so it can be even healthier." That's a healthy system we're seeing there. So you're seeing a result of plankton, currents, nutrients, and countless ecological connections all working together. Now, it's productive. That's what we love about cold water, it's productive. You may not get the clear crystal waters because there's so much plankton, and because it just has all these different colors. Like, whether it be a really, really dark blue, sometimes a little brown, sometimes a little green. It all depends on what's in the water. And, you know, this is something that's really productive.

5:44 It's really good, just like this episode and just like this podcast that we bring you each and every weekday. And if you find that you're getting value from this podcast, I want you to hit that follow button so you don't miss tomorrow's episode, where we're gonna be talking about one of the most favorite sharks that people have in the temperate waters, and I think that's something that you should check out. So hit that follow button right now. Now, one of my favorite things about ocean sunfish is that they challenge our assumptions about the ocean. People often think the most exciting marine life lives in tropical reefs. Like, everybody who wants to go diving will go diving in tropical reefs. And tropical reefs are incredible, don't get me wrong, but cold water oceans have their own magic.

6:26 Where else can you find a fish that looks like a floating dinner plate, weighs more than a car, dives hundreds of meters into the darkness, and then comes back to the surface to sunbathe? The answer is right here in cold Canadian waters. And that's why Oceans Week is such a great reminder. A reminder that the ocean isn't amazing only in the places that, you know, have travel brochures. It's amazing everywhere especially in the places people often overlook, like Nova Scotia. You don't have to go diving in Nova Scotian waters to see all these wonderful things. You can just see it on the surface, a mola mola just sunbathing. It's pretty cool. That ocean sunfish is proof that cold water oceans are anything but boring.

7:07 So the next time, you know, you think about these oceans, think about they're full of surprises. They're full of life, and full of animals that seem almost impossible until you see them for yourself. So if you ever have a chance to go to the Atlantic Ocean, whether you're in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEI, or Prince Edward Island for those who don't know, New Brunswick, even Quebec, you're seeing the Atlantic Ocean. If you're in Canada, I highly recommend that you go there. Even if you're in the northeast of the United States, highly recommend that you go to the Atlantic and be able to see the whales, the dolphins, the porpoises, the seals. You're gonna see mola molas. You're gonna see potentially like, leatherback sea turtles, sharks, all these different animals that are there in these wonderfully productive waters.

7:53 So that's the episode for today. If you enjoyed this episode, I want you to thank Pisces Oceans. They have been helpful not only in sponsoring this episode and being a part of this episode, but helping so many companies, so many non-profit organizations, so many Indigenous groups to be able to manage grants, to be able to strategize for different projects, to be able to help them communicate their message, so they can not only get more funding, but they can just spread their message and scale up their message to make you understand how important the ocean is. And I think that's something that is fun for all of us that work at Pisces Oceans, including myself and Kirsty and Natalie and Melissa, who are our co-CEOs. These are some amazing times that we get to work in.

8:35 We need ocean people to work in it and the group that I'm a part of now is, they're fantastic, and we love to work on ocean projects and help them scale and help them get funding and help them manage their grants and help them communicate and help them strategize. So if you wanna go and check it out, if you have an ocean project that needs a little bit of help communicating, or you need help in managing grants, go to piscesoceans.ca. Check it out there, or you can contact me in my socials in the show notes. All of it, all that stuff will be in the show notes. I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow when we're talking about probably one of the most popular sharks in the Atlantic right now. Always, I guess, and probably not the one that you think, but it's still popular.

9:18 We're gonna talk about that tomorrow, so don't forget to join us. Thank you again. My name is Andrew Lewin, your host of this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow, and happy conservation.