Bulletin, Southern California Academy of Sciences

It has long been known that at least one species of the genus Mola (family Molidae) inhabits the marine waters of the Northeast Pacific, including off the coast of California (Jordan and Evermann 1898; Roedel 1953; Hart 1973; Miller and Lea 1972). Particularly off California, the ocean sunfish, Mola mola (Linnaeus 1758), is an iconic species, commonly sighted at the sea surface, at depth by scuba divers, and by beach walkers as stranded carcasses (Mowatt-Larssen et al. 2025). Previously, M. mola also formed a large bycatch species in the California large-mesh drift gillnet fishery, which was soon phased out (Hahlbeck et al. 2017).