Mola mola (Linnaeus, 1758)

Iglésias, Samuel P., Bariche, Michel, Beau, Florent, Bérenger, Lucas, Beucher, Renaud, Chabrolle, Antoine, Cottalorda, Jean-Michel, Cousin, Bertrand, Curd, Amelia, Danet, Valentin, Duhamel, Erwan, Duval, Audrey, Farque, Pierre-André, Goascoz, Nicolas, Jadaud, Angélique, Larnaud, Pascal, Bouter, Mathieu Le, Bras, Yvan Le, Bris, Sylvain Le, Lombard, Laurent, Louisy, Patrick, Mandine, Alain, Mas, Lise, Menut, Thomas, Metral, Luisa, Poussard, Pierre, Quéro, Jean-Claude, Raybaud, Virginie, Renoult, Julien P., Richard, Thomas, Spitz, Jérôme, Ternon, Quentin, Thiriet, Pierre & Tournier-Broer, Ruben, 2021, French ichthyological records for 2019, Cybium 45 (3), pp. 169-188 : 184-185

Mola mola (Linnaeus, 1758)

Two Ocean sunfish, Molidae , were collected on 25 Oct 2019 during the EVHOE survey, using a pelagic trawl. They were collected at Station X0458 (45.1768 / 45.1427 °N, 3.3584 / 3.4266 °W, Southern Bay of Biscay), probably close to the sea surface, during the gear hauling in from 701- 756 m depth above a 785-2213 m deep continental slope. One of the two individuals, which were of similar size, was preserved. The fresh specimen ( Fig. 9F ) measured 595 mm TL, 809 mm H and weighed 12.36 kg. It has been taxidermized (by B. Bourles) and preserved with the collection No. MNHN-IC 2021-0157 and a tissue sample was preserved under No. BPS-4263. Recorded by S.P. Iglésias and J. Spitz. Sunfishes are regular visitors to the Bay of Biscay in the warm season ( Quéro et al., 1982). Dell’Amico (2020) records 72 sea sightings of sunfish for 2019 in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel. In the general literature on European ichthyology, only M. mola is listed. Recently Sawai et al. (2017) revised the taxonomy of the genus, revealing the presence of a second species in European waters, the Bump-head sunfish Mola alexandrini (Ranzani, 1839) . The present specimen of M. mola shows a wavy or lobed clavus margin (vs not wavy in M. alexandrini ) with eight clavus ossicles (vs ~12). Careful attention will be required in the future for the identification of sunfishes in European waters in order to distinguish these two cryptic species.

Acknowledgments. – The authors wish to thank the cited fishermen and women, as well as Mélanie Bécognée, Paul Boulbel, Jean-Pierre Brenneisen, Michelle Faye, Marc Gallene, Joël Guit- ton, Arnaud Le Breton, Roc’h Le Mot, Matthieu le Naour , Hélène Pédèche, David Le Quintrec , Jérôme Samson, Elisabeth Sellin, Pierre-Yves Stéphan and Verena Trenkel for collection of individuals or information. Thank you to Pascal Breton for help in the laboratory, to Jonathan Pfliger from the ichthyological collection at MNHN, and to Jeanne De Mazières for geographic repositories. We also owe special thanks to the members of the Peau-Bleue association and to all the volunteers who contributed to this article by participating in the Fish Watch Forum citizen science program, whether they were observers, validators, controllers or scientific experts. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments .

Figures

Figure 9. – Significant French ichthyological records for 2019 (continued). A: Synapturichthys kleinii, ~20 cm TL, 10 Aug 2019 (© J.P. Renoult); B: S. kleinii, ~20 cm TL, 27 Oct 2019 (© S. Le Bris); C: Lagocephalus lagocephalus, ~30 cm TL, 15 Aug 2019 (© J.P. Brenneisen); D: L. lagocephalus, 23 Aug 2019 (© A. Le Breton); E: L. lagocephalus, ~34 cm TL, 22 Aug 2019, MNHN-IC 2021-0156 (© S.P. Iglésias); F: Mola mola, 595 mm TL, 25 Oct 2019, MNHN-IC 2021-0157 (© S.P. Iglésias).