Earlier this week, a seven-foot fish washed ashore in Gearhart, but it wasn’t quite what it seemed.
The fish showed up Monday and quickly made the rounds on social media, according to the Seaside Aquarium. People flocked to the beach to see what they thought was an ocean sunfish, or Mola mola, that measured 7 feet, 3 inches.
But then news of the fish reached Marianne Nyegaard, a marine biologist based in New Zealand, who thought it might be something different. Nyegaard was researching ocean sunfish when genetic sampling led her to discover that not all of the fish she was studying were Mola mola, some were a rarer new species, Mola tecta, or hoodwinker sunfish. She published her findings in 2017.
Nyegaard thought the fish in Gearhart might be a hoodwinker sunfish, and she reached out to the Seaside Aquarium. Staff from the aquarium were quick to help, taking photographs, measurements and tissue samples. The new photographs enabled Nyegaard to confirm it was a hoodwinker, and it might be the largest one ever sampled.
According to Tiffany Boothe, assistant manager of the Seaside Aquarium, it was originally believed that hoodwinkers could only be found in the Southern Hemisphere, but a few have recently washed ashore in California and one in Alaska. Boothe said the fish has most likely been seen in the Pacific Northwest before and was just mistaken for a Mola mola.
Boothe said that when the fish first washed ashore, its body was in good condition and there was nothing to suggest how it might have died.
The fish is still on the beach near 10th Street, and it is likely to remain there for a few more days because its tough skin is hard for scavengers to puncture, Boothe said.
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