Rare moonfish cutting head on California beach

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A 3 meter tall marine creature that has been stranded in southern California has been identified as a stealth domefish, a recently identified rare species that would likely live in the southern hemisphere.

The University of California at Santa Barbara said that a trainee had spotted the fish stranded last week in Sands Beach, in the university's nature reserve, Coal Oil Point.

The trainee alerted Jessica Nielsen, Conservation Specialist at Coal Oil Point, who initially thought it was a type of local moon fish and posted pictures on the reserve's Facebook page.

This drew the attention of Thomas Turner, an associate professor in the UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, who reviewed the fish and posted photos on the iNaturalist online community.

This drew the attention of Marianne Nyegaard of Murdoch University in Australia, who identified the species in 2017 and officially named it Mola tecta, but gave it the nickname of "Scintillating", because she had escaped scientific recognition.

In an email, Nyegaard told UCSB that she had discussed these images with the ichthyologist Ralph Foster of the South Australian Museum, but that she was reluctant to identify the fish as a scintillating one because the photos did not clearly show the distinctive features and its known range.

Nyegaard sent California specific instructions on the subjects to be photographed and the tissue samples to be taken.

Turner and Nielsen were happy to help, but they had to first find the fish that had been moved by the tide, according to UCSB.

They walked on opposite sides of the beach and found it several hundred meters from its original position.

Nyegaard said he got a lot of extremely sharp photos "and the identity card is not in doubt."

The Sunfish is strange, flat and slightly oval with fins that look like small wings.

According to Thomas, the fish measured just over 7 feet long and was slightly wider from one end to the other of the fins. Its dorsal fin was a little less than 2 feet long. He did not measure the weight.