This is the extraordinary tale of how a massive, strange-looking fish wound up on a beach on the other side of the world from where it lives.
The seven-foot fish washed up at UC Santa Barbara’s Coal Oil Point Reserve in Southern California last week. Researchers first thought it was a similar and more common species of sunfish—until someone posted photos on a nature site and experts weighed in.
The seven-foot fish washed up at UC Santa Barbara’s Coal Oil Point Reserve in Southern California last week. Researchers first thought it was a similar and more common species of sunfish—until someone posted photos on a nature site and experts weighed in.
What transpired after that surprised researchers from California to Australia and New Zealand.
It turned out to be a species never seen before in North America. It’s called the hoodwinker sunfish.
“When the clear pictures came through, I thought there was no doubt. This is totally a hoodwinker,” said Marianne Nyegaard, a marine scientist who discovered the species in 2017. “I couldn’t believe it. I nearly fell out of my chair.”
How the Hoodwinker Got Its Name
Nyegaard spent years chasing the hoodwinker sunfish before she located and named the fish. All cases of the big fish were found in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Chile, she said. Except for one time in the 1890s, when drawings and records documented the fish appearing in the Netherlands.
