The Mola Mola of Nusa Penida
Ocean sunfish, or molas, look like the invention of a mad scientist. These prehistoric looking fish vie for the title of strangest fish in the sea. Its Latin name, mola mola, means millstone.
Huge and flat, these silvery-grey fish have tiny mouths and big eyes that vanish into an even bigger body with a truncated tail. Topping out at around 2 tons, this gentle giant is the world’s heaviest bony fish. (This category doesn’t count sharks and rays. The whale shark is 10 times bigger.)
With their tank-like bodies, molas were clearly not built for life in the fast lane, but they hold their own against faster and flashier fishes and are able to live in almost all of the world’s oceans. They are known to spend time near the ocean surface but tagging shows that molas are also prolific divers and migrate long distances at depth.
Nusa Penida is the largest of 3 islands that lie the other side of the Bandung Strait from Bali’s east coast, the others being Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. The water here is fairly cold, due to a deep upswelling south of Bali, but often startlingly clear, with gorgeous corals and prolific fish, some turtles and grey reef and silver-tip sharks. From July to mid-November mola mola can be seen here at a number of dive sites around Nusa Lembongan and Penida, often daily.
Most renowned for their eccentric shape, the mola mola has no caudal fin, yet displays excessively large dorsal and ventral fins, making it far taller than it is long. Although often sighted by divers in shallower water, mola mola can swim to depths of almost 600m. The diet of a mola consists primarily of jellyfish, although they are also partial to the odd salp, comb jellies, zooplankton, squid, crustaceans and small fish.
Fortunately for them, they possess relatively few predators – sea lions, orcas and sharks being their only concern. The skin of a mola mola is approximately 3 inches thick and its colouration is believed to be for camouflage; dark above fading to a lighter colour below. The fish are well known for the impressive number of parasites found on their skin: some 40 genera of mola parasites have been recorded to date. One of the most interesting facts about the mola mola involves its reproductive habits – females produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate, releasing up to 300 million eggs into the ocean at any one time, to be externally fertilised by the male.
They are frequently seen basking in the sun near the surface and are often mistaken for sharks when their huge dorsal fins emerge above the water. Their teeth are fused into a beak-like structure, and they are unable to fully close their relatively small mouths. Ocean sunfish can become so infested with skin parasites; they will often invite small fish or even birds to feast on the pesky critters. They will even breach the surface up to 10 feet (3 meters) in the air and land with a splash in an attempt to shake the parasites.
In this water colour and ink, Kelly Lance from Denver, CO, USA captures the unusual mola mola in an extraordinary symbiotic relationship with the albatross. They often line up in droves to entice albatross to pull the parasites from their flesh.
“God save thee, ocean sunfish
From the fiends that plague thee thus
Why look’st thou so? With thy large shoals,
Thou fed the albatross.”
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Because molas spend so much time drifting near the ocean surface, they are vulnerable to fishing boats that use drift gillnets. In California, nearly 30 percent of the catch in a swordfish boat can be molas caught by mistake—rivalling or exceeding the number of swordfish caught.
In the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish gillnet fishery catches up to 93 percent molas. Gillnets usually don’t kill molas immediately, but they cut into their skin, scrape off their protective mucus and flood their gills with air.
Another hazard to molas are discarded plastic bags. When these wind up in the ocean, they float at the surface and look a lot like a jellyfish — a mola’s favorite meal. If the mola doesn’t choke as it sucks the bag in, the plastic can
clog the fish’s stomach, slowly starving the animal. Helping molas is one more reason to carry your own shopping bags with you to the store—and to make sure any plastic bags you use go into the trash can.
NUSA PENIDA DIVE ITINERARY
Choose your own dates during Mola Mola season; JULY/AUGUST/SEPTEMBER’ 15
SQ 479 JNB SINGAPORE 1435 #0700
SQ 942 SIN DENPASAR 0935 1205
* 7 nights Tulamben Resort
* Patio room
* Breakfasts
* Set lunch and dinner on day 2, 3,4,5,6
* 2 guided shore dives at Liberty wreck
* 2 guided shore dives at Mimpi or Kubu drop-off
* 4 guided boat dives at Nusa Penida to see the Mola Mola
* Spa Aroma therapy 90 minutes on last day
* Tanks, weights, guide and porter.
* Return airport Transfers
SQ 947 DENPASAR SINGAPORE 2005 2235
SQ 478 SINGAPORE JNB 0210 0700
Cost: From R25300 + 5944 taxes per diver sharing.
All prices have been quoted according to current availabilities and rate of exchange and are subject to change accordingly at any time and without prior notice
Contact:
Daniela Scotti 011 467 4704 or Email dani@hartleysgroup.com