From Beach Find to Aquarium Exhibit – The Story of the Mola

On a wintry cold day in January, a hardy beachcomber spotted what he thought was a buried and stranded turtle on the East End of Dauphin Island.  Through a series of phone calls, the Sea Lab staff were eventually contacted to see what they could do for the animal.

The grey hump in the sand proved to be not a turtle, but an expired ocean sunfish, or Mola mola, generally considered to be one of the most unattractive denizens of the sea.  With its huge head and tiny tail, the mola prefers to spend most of its time drifting near the surface of the ocean, opportunistically feeding on jellyfish or any other creatures that happen to be passing its way.  Although its cumbersome size and lack of speed would seem to make it an easy target for predators, it is covered by a very tough, leathery skin, rendering it nearly invulnerable.

 Moving this half-ton beast was no small feat.  Estuarium Manager Robert Dixon, Aquarist Kyle Weis and Marine Educator David Nadeau eventually ended up launching a boat to drag the mola through the waters around Dauphin Island to Little Billy Goat Hole, where it was picked up by a tractor front end loader.  Wet, cold and covered with mola slime, the team triumphantly brought the specimen to the South Campus.

 Hoping to turn the unusual fish into an Estuarium display, Kyle, who is an artist as well as an aquarist, and his brother Brett worked quickly to make a fiberglass cast of the mola before decay set in.  Working one section at a time, a mold was formed that was later used to create the fiberglass display (thanks to Fiberplastics, Inc. for their time and materials).  Using spray paints and airbrushes, Kyle then carefully replicated the coloring of the mola, creating a lifelike specimen that will soon become the newest display in the Gulf of Mexico gallery of the Estuarium.

  The carcass itself was buried, allowing Mother Nature to strip the flesh from the bones.  The skeleton will be used for instructional purposes.