LARGE SUNFISH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 152, 30 June 1938, Page 20

LARGE SUNFISH

CAPTURE IN AUCKLAND (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 29. A large sunflsh was stranded in the shallow waters of Huia Bay, inside Manukau Heads, on Tuesday morning, and was secured without difficulty by Messrs. W. Barr and J. Evans, who rowed out in a dinghy and towed it ashore with a rope. It was first noticed by sonie children going to school, who said the fish was spouting up fountains of water. They pointed it out to some men on the shore, but these thought it was a large 'log oyer ■yvhich the sea was breaking. Later in the morning, however, it came closer inshore, and its dorsal fin showed clearly. As the tide ebbed the fish became stranded on a sandbank, where it was captured shortly after. When it .was taken a small pilot fish, about nine inches long, was found clinsing to its upper fin. This was dislodged with some difficulty because of the strong grip afforded by the curiously barbed suction pad under the pilot's jaw.

The sunflsh is flat-sided, somewhat like .a huge' flounder, except that it has two. large thick fins, one on, its back and the other beneath, and that it swims in an upright position as if cutting the water.

The specimen at Huia Bay is about 10ft from tin to tip of its fins, and about nine feet long, and it is estimated to weigh well .over, half a ton. The almost complete absence of a tail gives the animal a peculiar shape which, it is said, assists it in deep-sea=diving, by which it gets its food. It lives on small organisms found at a.great depth. For this reason the mouth is surprisingly small, being scarcely a foot wideband the teeth are few tin number. The whole body is dark grey in colour and devoid of scales. ;