FEATURE CREATURE
FEATURE CREATURE
OCEAN SUNFISH (MOLA MOLA) FEATURE IUCN RED LIST 2015 PHOTOGRAPHY STEVE WOODS | WWW.STEVEWOODSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
RED LIST CATEGORY & CRITERIA: VULNERABLE Scientic Name: Mola mola Synonyms: Tetraodon mola Linnaeus, 1758 Common Names: English: Ocean Sunfish, Giant Sunfish, Headfish, Mola Ocean Sunfish, Moonfish, Sunfish, Sunfish French: Môle, Môle Commun, Poisson Lune, Poisson-lune Spanish; Castilian: Mola, Peixe Lua, Pez Cabeza, Pez Luna, Pez Sol TAXONOMIC NOTES Recent investigations of M. mola mitochondrial sequences showed evidence that the genus Mola contains two species: M. mola and the southern sunfish, M. ramsayi (Bass et al. 2005). Report from Yoshita et al. (2009) concluded that the genus Mola contained three species. JUSTIFICATION This species is widely distributed. It is targeted by fishers in the western Pacific and south Atlantic and is captured in large numbers as 24
DIVERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT | DECEMBER 2019
bycatch in fisheries using long lines, drift gillnets and midwater trawls in a number of widely distributed fisheries. In some fisheries, the catch of Mola mola exceeds that of the target species. Preliminary calculations from three of these fisheries (two South African longline fisheries, and the USA Southwest Region drift net fishery), indicate 300, 26,000 and 340,000 individual M. mola per fishery are made each year and it is likely that other fisheries using these same methods are taking large, but unreported, bycatch of M. mola throughout the majority of its range. In some areas, substantial declines (up to 100%) have been documented, likely driven by the high bycatch. Based on these declines and the likelihood that this species is experiencing high rates of bycatch throughout most of its range, we suspect this species is declining globally by at least 30% over three generation lengths (24-30 years) that includes both the past and the future. Therefore, this species is listed as Vulnerable under A4bd. Future monitoring and research on its basic biological variables such as age at maturity, generation time, etc. is recommended.
GEOGRAPHIC RANGE Native: Extant (Resident): Albania; Algeria; American Samoa; Angola; Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Argentina; Australia; Bahamas; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belgium; Belize; Benin; Bermuda; Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba; Brazil (Trindade); British Indian Ocean Territory; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Canada; Cayman Islands; Chile (Easter Is.); China; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Colombia; Comoros; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Cook Islands; Costa Rica; Croatia; Cuba; Cyprus; Côte d’Ivoire; Denmark; Disputed Territory (Paracel Is., Spratly Is.); Djibouti; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador (Galápagos); Egypt; El Salvador; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Faroe Islands; Fiji; France (Clipperton I.); French Guiana; French Polynesia; French Southern Territories (Mozambique Channel Is.); Gabon; Gambia; Germany; Ghana; Gibraltar; Greece; Grenada; Guadeloupe; Guam; Guatemala; Guernsey; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; India (Andaman Is., Nicobar Is.); Indonesia; Iran, Islamic Republic
