Watch as 5,000-pound sunfish dwarfs woman swimming during 'once-in-a-lifetime moment'

USA Today

05-04-2025

Watch as 5,000-pound sunfish dwarfs woman swimming during 'once-in-a-lifetime moment'
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Sunfish looks massive in underwater video with diver
A diver's video showed the massive size of a sunfish next to another swimmer.
No deep-sea adventure is complete without an unusually enormous fish sighting.
Luis Miguel Gutierrez Bringas, a sea-diving tour operator, recently captured video of a massive and seemingly unbothered sunfish swimming close to another diver off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in late March.
Gutierrez called the brief interaction with the sunfish, also known as the Mola mola, a 'once-in-a-lifetime moment."
'Finding a sunfish in its natural habitat is a privilege that few can experience. And we were lucky enough to swim with him, observe its behavior and learn more about these amazing animals,' he told Storyful.
Gutierrez also documented the experience on social media, writing that "the Underwater World ALWAYS feels like HOZIER'S yell—> Mola mola," referencing the Irish performer's signature belt on "Northern Attitude" featuring Noah Kahan, picked as the video's soundtrack.
"A sunfish sighting to remember forever!" is the text displayed over Gutierrez's video.
Watch diver swim alongside massive sunfish in Mexico
What is the ocean sunfish?
The ocean sunfish is the world's heaviest bony fish, not including stingrays or sharks. Mola molas can weigh up to 5,000 pounds.
The slow-moving fish looks like the "invention of a mad scientist" with a tiny mouth and big eyes that vanish into an even bigger body with a truncated tail, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Sunfish reside in open waters across the globe in tropical and temperate oceans and feed on mainly jellies and other gelatinous zooplankton like salps, squid, fish, crustaceans and algae.