Report: Rare Giant Fish From The Ocean’s Depths Washes Up On The Sonoma Coast

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A rare — and distinctly odd-looking — species of fish washed up on Doran Beach. One that had no scientific name until just a few years ago.

So strange was the fish that it took several days and the intervention of a scientist to determine that the creature found on the beach was the body of a hoodwinker sunfish, or Mola tecta.

Stefan Kiesbye, a Santa Rosa novelist and English professor at Sonoma State University, spotted the fish at the westernmost tip of the beach, some 50 feet above the waterline, according to The Press Democrat.

The freshwater creature was first formally identified in 2017 by a group of researchers led by Dr. Marianne Nyegaard of New Zealand. She helped confirm the identity of the species found by Kiesbye.

Staff members at Doran Regional Park said onlookers spotted several sunfish offshore. The hoodwinker "Sadly, one of the sunfish didn’t survive."

The stray ended beached near a jetty.

In the words of a regional park staff, nature will now take over, returning nutrients back into the ecosystem.

The fish washing to shore was sad, Kiesbye said. "But it was so enormous and so weird and gorgeous," he said. "It's like suddenly you're on another planet."