6,000 Pound Sunfish Is the Largest Bony Fish on Record

INA - SOURCES 

Scientists in Portugal got word that fishermen and boaters had spotted an enormous dead sunfish floating in the central North Atlantic.

Researchers initially had doubts about the fish’s reported size, but when they finally reached the carcass near Faial Island in the Azores archipelago, they almost couldn’t believe their eyes.

Now, after weighing, measuring and analyzing the bump-head sunfish (Mola alexandrini), scientists believe it’s the heaviest bony fish ever discovered. 

Weighing in at roughly 6,050 pounds, the size of a large SUV, the fish was 882 pounds heavier than the reigning bony fish world record-holder, a 5,070-pound sunfish discovered off the coast of Japan in 1996.