Ocean Sunfish: Lovable Leviathan

Hi everyone. My name is Mola mola, but you can call me Mola, or ocean sunfish if you like. It's a pretty good nickname because I live in the ocean, I like to bask in the sun, and I'm a fish. My friend Giant Pacific Octopus is typing for me so I can tell my story to you humans, because I just feel so misunderstood sometimes.

My Story: Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

I know I look a little weird. It's okay, you can say it, I have thick skin. At up to 5,000 pounds I am the heaviest bony fish species in the world. But the truth is, I don't even have that many bones. With only 16 vertebrae, all other fish have more than I do. And I don't have any tail bones at all. My skeleton is mostly cartilage. In fact, if you could see my skeleton, it would look something like this:

Photo by Sandstein [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

You may wonder how I get dates looking like this. Well, first of all, believe it or not, I'm not that bad looking for a tetraodontiform. My cousins pufferfish, filefish, and boxfish aren't exactly the most normal looking bunch. And more importantly, I don't actually have to meet any guys, I just release more eggs than any other known vertebrate into the ocean and swim away. This really avoids a lot of awkward first dates.

Despite being a little strange looking, I think I'm actually pretty normal. I hatched from an egg and then grew many million times in size, just like everyone else. I like to swim around in warmer waters all over the world eating an enormous quantity of jellyfish. And just like humans, I like to get my spa treatment; when I have a lot of parasites living in my skin I make a surface visit and have some seagulls take care of it. They're very good.

So if you can get past my looks, I would like to be friends. I know I come on a little strong sometimes (for the record, I did not mean to knock that boy into the water when I leapt onto that boat, I was just trying to be friendly). I've also been told that when I swim at the surface, humans sometimes think I'm a shark:

But you can always tell it's me because I swim by swinging my dorsal fin back and forth.

Sometimes I get the feeling that things are not going well between us. It seems like you are always catching me in fishing nets, and even if it is unintentional it is still very unpleasant. You also keep dumping those fake jellyfish into the ocean that I know I'm not supposed to eat, but frankly, it can be very confusing. Now that I am living at the aquarium I hope that we can spend more time together. I am happy that all of you can read my story here, and I hope you feel like you know me a little better now.

  by  exfordy 

This is my happy face

Still Curious? Learn more

Here is my best human friend giving a TED talk all about me:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vld1zXGtZGg

She also has an excellent website with more information:

• http://oceansunfish.org

Here are a few more great ocean sunfish resources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mola_mola
• http://australianmuseum.net.au/Ocean-Sunfish-Mola-mola/
• http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-the-Ocean-Sunfish.html?c=y&page=1

Next week on Creature Features we leave the ocean and get a visit from a flying friend. Stay tuned!

Giant Pacific Octopus: Aquarium Superstar

Hello readers, it's me, Giant Pacific Octopus. I don't mind being out of the water for a few hours, so I thought I would tell you a little more about myself.

All About Me

I hatched Enteroctopus dofleini, a rice-sized youth in the North Pacific. Humans soon recognized my star potential and brought me to the aquarium to be a celebrity, where I go by my stage name, Giant Pacific Octopus. It's just as well, since my mother, my father, and most of my 57,000 siblings had already passed away. Which is really okay; I'm more of a solitary creature.

Honestly, I've always felt a little like an outsider, anyway. While many in my phylum, mollusca, slug around, clam up, or act like mussel heads, we cephalopods have a little more class. Especially giant Pacific octopuses (that's right, I said octopuses), arguably the largest octopuses in the world. That's why humans pay us homage in their classical artwork:

Totally historically accurate

I myself only weigh around 30 pounds, but I had an uncle who had an arm span of 25 feet and ate sharks for dinner.

Living in the aquarium, I generally have it pretty good. I've never had to autotomy an arm, so my bilateral symmetry remains perfect, and I only inked once. (I thought I saw a predator of mine, a seal! Fortunately it was just this guy.) It's pretty easy for me to get in and out of my tank since I can fit through any size opening, as long as my beak can get through. Boy am I glad I don't have a skeleton; those things seem really restrictive.

Also, the food here is great. The tanks near me have all kinds of fish and crustaceans. I'm not really a picky eater, I just like variety. I'll suction cup just about anything to see if I like the taste.

I get along great with the humans. They have really weak hands, so they are always asking me to open jars for them.

Sometimes it does seem like my arms have a mind of their own; fortunately I have excellent, polarized eyesight and can watch them and make sure they're doing what I intended. Like all octopuses, I am venomous, and I don't mean my personality! But I don't often feel the need to bite anybody, except my dinner.

So overall, life is grand. Every once in a while I feel a little red and translucent, but most days I feel opaque and reflective. I hope you have enjoyed me pouring my hearts out (all three of them)!

Still Curious? Learn more

If you are interested in learning more about other octopuses from some humans they're friends with, check out this excellent article: 

• http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6474. 

Here are some other great octopus resources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080102230427/http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Support/AdoptSpecies/AnimalInfo/GiantOctopus/default.cfm
• http://www.thecephalopodpage.org

See you next week for a feature on another creature!