They found a giant moonfish stranded on a beach in Australia

A huge moon fish from 1.8 meters long He was found dead on an Australian beach and the images of this virtually unknown animal have been around the world.

The moon fish the heaviest bone fish on the planet, also known as Mola Mola, was found last weekend by three people at the mouth of the Murray River in southern Australia.

The images of the stranded fish were published on Facebook by Linette Grzelak. "My couple he thought that they were part of a ship that was shipwrecked", says the woman to the newspaper The Guardian.

This type of fish is distinguished by its large size and its characteristics body crushed laterally. It can weigh up to 2.2 tons, according to the magazine National Geographic.

The reason this moon fish has reached the coast is unknown. "It is usual that collide with ships and some are so big that they can sink a sailboat, "said Ralph Foster, head of the South Australian Museum's fish collection.

This specimen was of a rather average size for its species, according to him. The moon fish "they can be much bigger (…) almost twice this size"he explained to the television network Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

"We know very little about themit's only in recent years that technology has allowed us to start learning something. "vulnerable" by the International Union for the Conversation of Nature (IUCN).

These fish have the particularity of tan on the surface of the water, which is worth its name in English "sunfish". They can also swim several hundred meters deep.