Rare mola mola washes up in Miramichi River

Another mola mola fish has washed up in New Brunswick, this time the ocean sunfish was discovered in the Miramichi River.

Scott Campbell was out for a walk with his dog when he found the mola mola along the banks of the Miramichi River.

Campbell said he knew right away the fish wasn't native to the area.

It looks like a fish head with a wavy tailand a long fin on the top and bottom, he said.

Campbell took a picture of the 11-kilogram fish with his phone and emailed it to Laurent Robichaud, the co-ordinator with theNew Brunswick Aquarium and Marine Centre in Shippagan.

Robichaud said it is odd to see this type of ocean fish in a river.

He said the mola mola is known to swim long distances from its home in tropical waters.

"It must have been lost or following some jellyfish and eventually ended up in the river and got diosoriented and eventually died, cause it doesn't live in fresh water, he said.

He said the high tides could also have brought the ocean fish into the Miramichi River.

This isn't the first time a mola mola has been found in New Brunswick.Last month, a 160-kg mola mola washed up on a beach in St. Andrews.

Researchers are wondering whether warming waters in the Bay of Fundy are enticing more, larger sea creatures further north.

Only a handful of the fish have ever been found in the Bay of Fundy and those were discovered mostly in the late 1960s and 1970s.

An adult mola mola weighs 1,000 kilograms on average.