MOLACULT — Too Weird to Fail

They called it the world's most useless fish. But if they suck so bad, why have they existed for tens of millions of years evolving into a whole lineage of related species?

They look and act the way they do because IT WORKS. And, importantly, they're not hurting anyone...except for jellyfish, they're hurting a LOT of jellyfish.

But we're not here to convince you that the mola mola is a good fish. We don't need this fish to be mainstream. We don't need to fight for their honor. It doesn't need us, it knows it's success.

Whatever's wrong with it is something amazing about it.

Fact 1 of 7

A captive ocean sunfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium went from 57 to 880 pounds in 14 months. They needed FAA approval and a helicopter to get it out. It had outgrown a million-gallon tank.

Fact 2 of 7

Sunfish will float on the surface to warm up, but also possibly so that seagulls will peck parasites off them. They have to be careful though — the gulls will also happily peck out their eyeballs if they let them. This is, perhaps, one reason why mola (unlike most fish) are able to blink.

Fact 3 of 7

The ocean sunfish grows 60 million times its birth weight. If an average human baby did this, it would grow from 7 pounds to an adult size of 420 million pounds.

Fact 4 of 7

One of the ocean sunfish's parasites is the larval form of a shark tapeworm. The parasite can only complete its lifecycle if the mola gets eaten by a shark.

Fact 5 of 7

In Edo-period Japan, ocean sunfish were accepted as tax payment. In German, it's called Mondfisch — "moon fish." In Polish: "head alone." Its teeth are fused so tightly it can never close its mouth.

Fact 6 of 7

Tetrodotoxin (the pufferfish poison) is named after the order Tetraodontiformes, which also includes the molas. The pufferfish doesn't even make it. Symbiotic bacteria do.

Fact 7 of 7

The ocean sunfish can't close its mouth, has no swim bladder, no tail, and no axial musculature. It eats jellyfish, which are 95% water. And yet it's the heaviest bony fish on Earth. Respectfully, how.

Your mockery means nothing.