I can't believe people would slander ocean sunfish for having a lot of parasites. Uh, hello?? Every animal in nature has parasites dipshit, it came free with living in an ecosystem
RIIIIIGHT TToTT I mean. I guess you can dislike the ocean sunfish, it's not like I can do anything about it lmao. But it seems like a lot of the reasons some people dislike them are based on twisting the truth or are just silly, the same criteria apply to so many other fish no one would ever make fun of (you can of course be a hater for the sake of being a hater, the sunfish won't know and they won't care). I only brought up the parasite point because that's the one I never see anyone talk about but some of the other reasons why people dislike ocean sunfish are that they are largely immobile, they're often stuck at the surface of the water, and that they're awful at staying alive. None of that is true! They're prolific hunters that hunt for squid, small fish and jellies in the mesopelagic zone, they can dive into the deep dark waters below several times a day! Their lack of a swim bladder allows them to seamlessly travel between these great depths without bursting, their body being neither positively nor negatively buoyant so they alter their depth via swimming using their enlarged, muscular dorsal and anal fin. They're slow, sure, but the fastest fish in the ocean (marlins, billfish, sharks) have heating mechanisms in their muscles to allow them to stay warm and therefore faster in the cold water. Sunfish have no such luxury! They instead make do with great innovation, basking on the surface to warm their bodies up between each dive. This tactic is intentional and allows them to live this very demanding but rewarding lifestyle! And it's not like they're horribly slow either... they can leap out of the water when evading predators!
And then of course there's the thing about sunfish only being good for parasites. Which... damn, if you only value animals for what they provide, there's the fact that sunfish bring back nutrients from the lower levels of the ocean back to the epipelagic zone. If you truly see no point to an animal if it has no use, hmph. I don't really understand where these sorts of opinions of sunfish being inferior and useless come from (pretty privilege?), but I can personally remember first hearing of this opinion in an old TikTok video of a young man claiming many of the points I mentioned above: immobile, poor swimmers, slow, parasite-infested, stuck at the mercy of the current, etcetera. I am not sure where even this came from?? Ehh... well. Debunking one fish myth at a time, I suppose...
Anyway, I felt passionate about sunfish to write all this just now in the heat of the moment, enjoy!
I like to tease sunfish for their funny, and voluntary, decision to switch around the steering and propulsion functionalies of their fins. I would kill for sunfish.
That’s what makes them even funnier and more unique! They “decided” that the caudal fin was actually useless and got rid of it, instead focusing their muscles on the dorsal and anal fin. They went through the same flipper innovation process as dolphins or sea turtles, just sideways! Sideways sea turtles…
It may come as a surprise to some when they hear that the ocean sunfishes’ closest relatives are pufferfishes, triggerfishes, porcupinefishes and other members of Tetraodontiformes. This becomes much more apparent when you realise that these fishes can use their dorsal and anal fins for propulsion too! The sunfish just took it to a new level and got rid of the caudal fin entirely :D
