“The strange fish weight 1000kg caught by fisherman”

Marine biologist Enrique Ostale could not believe his eyes when he saw the enormous sunfish tangled in the nets of a tuna-fishing boat off the Mediterranean coast of Ceuta earlier this month.

Scientists carefully manoeuvred the sunfish aboard their boat to take measurements and DNA samples A marine biologist says he had read about sunfish growing to this size but never thought he would touch one so large. The fish was returned to the water smoothly after being untangled from fishing nets

They said “We tried to put it on the 1,000kg scale but it was too heavy. It would’ve broken it,”

Mr Ostale heads Seville University’s marine biology laboratory in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the north coast of Africa told: “Based off its corpulence — and compared with other catches — it must’ve weighed around 2 tones. It’s normal to see large fishes, but not this big.”

A group of marine scientists work in chest-deep water to free a large grey sunfish from a fishing net. After being freed from the net the massive fish swam away into the ocean. The fish was first isolated in an underwater chamber attached to the boat before being lifted aboard using a crane, where it stayed for a few minutes while Mr Ostale and his fellow biologists took measurements, photographs and DNA samples.

With dark grey skin, rounded grooves in its flanks and a large, prehistoric-looking head, this particular specimen was likely a Mola alexandrini, a sub-species of the mola sunfish genus, which sports a distinctively stubby, scalloped back fin.