The Unexpected arrives on the beach: - part two

Again at the beginning of January 2003, a Sunfish was found washed up, freshly dead on the tide strand at Rimac. This was the third such occurrence since 1986 and John Walker of English Nature found one still alive, which he returned to the sea.

This latest sunfish was approximately 14 inches (360mm) in diameter, a mere tiddler in comparison to its full potential of 10 meters and 2 tons in weight. The sunfish was virtually round, hence the diameter reference to diameter, but they lengthen with age and can reach 13feet (4meters) in length when mature.

Sunfish are to be found in the worlds temperate and equatorial waters, where they feed on jellyfish and plankton. When swimming, they are often close to the surface and can be spotted when the dorsal fin appears above the water surface. They can also float on the surface, appearing like huge plates.

In UK waters, they are more typically to be seen in the southwest approaches waters, but this year there have been a huge increase in summer records, in particular, from Devon, Cornwall and S.W. Scotland, i.e. in the Gulf Stream influence This has been suggested to be yet a further indicator of global warming. Occurrences in the North Sea are much scarcer, but over recent years, there have been increases of records of a number of fish species more typical of the Mediterranean and West African waters, including red snapper.