Mola masterpiece! Passing gull produces striking image
A seabird on Monday, while flying over a blue canvass boat cover, produced a splendid rendering of an ocean sunfish, or Mola mola.
A seabird on Monday, utilizing a blue canvass boat cover, produced a splendid rendering of an ocean sunfish, or Mola mola.
“Never knew gulls could be so artistic,” Kate Cummings, owner of Blue Ocean Whale Watch,” stated on Facebook.
Followers of the whale-watching company in Moss Landing, Calif., immediately recognized the dropping as being similar in appearance to the peculiar-looking Mola mola.
“Cut the material off and sell it on eBay for 1M,” reads one of dozens of comments.
Another echoed the sentiment: “Put some resin on it and make it into jewelry.”
ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Blue whale ‘explodes out of the sea like a submarine’; video
Mola mola, which roam the oceans slurping sea jellies and other small prey, can measure 10 feet and weigh up 5,000 pounds. They’re the world’s heaviest bony fish and among the most easily recognizable fish species.
Cummings told For The Win Outdoors that she noticed the shape of the gull’s dropping as she was removing the flybridge cover from one of her boats.
Generic Mola mola/Wikimedia Commons
“It was immediate,” she said. “I’d be embarrassed about turning this into news if it wasn’t so uncanny.”
Because the fish are so goofy looking and docile, sightings are cherished by boaters as they search for whales and other marine mammals.
Reads another comment on Cummings’ Facebook page: “I want a bird to do this to me!”