Slender sunfish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
|
||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Ranzania laevis (Pennant, 1776) |
The slender sunfish, Ranzania laevis, is a mola or ocean sunfish of the family Molidae, the only member of the genus Ranzania, found globally in tropical and temperate seas. Its length is up to 1 m.
The slender sunfish is a smaller, more elongate version of the ocean sunfish but is otherwise very similar in appearance and habits. Their skin is smooth and thinner than other Mola species. It is uncommon.
Body colour is silver with dark dorsal and anal fins and a pattern of dark lines on the head and flanks. It lives near the surface and feeds on planktonic crustaceans, which it consumes with its vertical slit mouth, with its jaws twisted 90 degrees.
[edit] References
- "Ranzania laevis". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. March 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
- Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand, (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) ISBN 0-00-216987-8
- [1]
