FROM THE DEEP

Odd-Looking Fish that Washed Ashore in Oregon Is Newly Discovered Species

The previously unknown variety of flat, circular fish was first documented by a New Zealand researcher in 2017.

An odd-looking fish whose corpse washed ashore in Northern Oregon is a member of a newly discovered and rare species of sunfish called the hoodwinker sunfish (Mola tecta), according to a local aquarium that posted the news on Facebook. The previously unknown variety of flat, circular fish was first documented by a New Zealand researcher named Mariann Nyegaard, who published a paper on the animal in 2017. “This fish, hiding in plain sight, has most likely been seen/washed ashore in the Pacific Northwest before but was mistaken for the more common, Mola mola [ocean sunfish],” the Seaside Aquarium in Seaside, Oregon wrote. Nyeegard spotted photos of the distinctive fish online and reached out to the local aquatic organization to take tissue samples and more photographs of the body, through which she confirmed that the specimen was indeed a hoodwinker sunfish—and possibly the largest ever recorded, according to the aquarium.