SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A 7-foot (215-centimeter) sea creature that washed ashore in Southern California has been identified as a hoodwinker sunfish, a recently identified rare species thought to live in the Southern Hemisphere.
The University of California, Santa Barbara, said an intern spotted the stranded fish last week at Sands Beach in the university’s Coal Oil Point Natural Reserve.
The intern alerted Jessica Nielsen, a conservation specialist at Coal Oil Point who initially thought it was a type of local sunfish and posted photos to the reserve’s Facebook page.
That drew the attention of Thomas Turner, an associate professor in UCSB’s ecology, evolution and marine biology department who examined the fish and posted photos to the iNaturalist online community.
That caught the eye of Marianne Nyegaard of Murdoch University in Australia, who identified the species in 2017 and formally named it Mola tecta but gave it the hoodwinker moniker because it had somehow escaped scientific recognition.
Justin Timberlake set to bring his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour to Australia in 2025
Start of Sen. Bob Menendez's bribery trial is delayed a week to mid
Atlanta or Afghanistan? Wild shootout breaks out at gas station with one gunman wielding an AK
Larry David reunites with onscreen ex
Croatia's top court rules President Milanović cannot be prime minister because of campaign
Rita Ora flashes some cleavage in a scoop
Angel Reese gushes over Caitlin Clark as she put rivalries aside at last week's WNBA Draft
Target starts price war with Walmart by slashing the cost of 5,000 popular items
Jury selection for Trump's hush money trial could near a close
Jude Bellingham's new model girlfriend Laura Celia Valk looks sensational in a figure
Taylor Swift leaves QR codes with secret meanings in Sydney and Melbourne ahead of the much