If you want to spot the ultra-exotic summer visitor, all you have to do is slip on a wetsuit – now moonfish have been observed at Kjøvangen in the Oslo Fjord.
If you want to spot the ultra-exotic summer visitor, all you have to do is slip on a wetsuit – now moonfish have been observed at Kjøvangen in the Oslo Fjord.
August 14, 2023
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We have received clues from several divers that moonfish have been spotted off Kjøvangen in the municipality of Vestby, not far north of Son in the Oslofjord.
So far, no one has captured it on a memory stick, but now there’s definitely an opportunity to get some unique photos!
Bjørn Vidar Bäckström and Trond Williksen from Dykkerhuset in Moss were dive guides in Kjøvangen yesterday and were about to fire up the grill when they noticed something strange on the surface.
– Unfortunately, there is no picture because the phone is left in the car. Moonfish are the size of beach balls, Bäckström told Dykking.
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Moonfish are not entirely whimsical in our latitudes, and appear every few years – usually after summer.
On Species Data Bank 76 observations have been recorded along the coast north to Narvik. About. a third came from the Oslofjord.
Found sunfish on the beach
We heard from marine biologist and head of the marine team at the WWF World Wildlife Fund, Fredrik Myhre, what he thinks about the possibility of seeing a sunfish:
– Sunfish are not commonly seen in Norwegian waters, and it was previously thought that they got lost here with the Gulf Stream. Ocean temperatures have been rising, and that means we’ll see them here more often, he said.
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Moonfish polished in the depths
Myhre believes that there may actually be no more moonfish now than there were before, but that people are more observant than ever.
– More has been written about moonfish in the media in recent years, so people may also gain more knowledge. But this is only speculation, it is also possible that the stock may rise a bit, said Myhre.
There are three species of sunfish. The species that appear along our coasts are called Mola mola, and can be 2.5 meters long and weigh a ton. Usually, however, they are much smaller than us.
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Relatively Mola Alexandrini is the heaviest bony fish in the world. The largest specimen caught was three meters long and weighed more than 2,700 kilograms.
Moonfish can lay up to 300 million eggs, and are called “sunfish” in English. The reason for this may be that it likes to “sunbathe” on the surface.
Moonfish have been observed in the Oslo Fjord in 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2020 – but it appears they have not visited since then.
In 2014, Bjørn Stubne was one of the lucky ones who was able to see sunfish near Svestad in the Inner Oslofjord. NRK filed a case about it, and there you can too watch video.
Previous observations have shown that moonfish can swim all the way to Oslo Harbour, so you just need to keep your eyes peeled!
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