Marine biologist Enrique Ostale could not believe his eyes when he saw a “giant” fish entangled in the nets of a fishing boat fishing for tuna off Ceuta.

The huge fish was probably, according to Reuters, a Mola Alexandrini, a subspecies of the moonfish of the Menidae family, which has a characteristic fin on its back, is considered vulnerable and is not consumed in Europe.

According to an interview given by Ostale yesterday, Thursday, the impressive creature was 3.2 meters high and 2.9 meters long and was the largest fish of its kind ever found in the area.

“We tried to put it on the scales of 1,000 kilos but it was too heavy. It would break it”, said Ostale, head of the University of Madrid’s Marine Biology Laboratory at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north coast of Africa, which was called to the site to evaluate the find. He estimates that the weight of the “mammoth” fish must have been around 2 tons.

The fish was initially isolated in an “underwater chamber” attached to the vessel. A crane then lifted it up so that Ostale and his colleagues could measure it, photograph it, and take DNA samples.

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Marine biologist Enrique Ostale could not believe his luck when he set eyes on the enormous sunfish he had been called to assess, after a tuna-fishing boat noticed it tangled in its nets off the Mediterranean coast of Ceuta earlier this month.

(Reuters)https://t.co/JRgDcskhR2 pic.twitter.com/lmAAx3b04M

— The Voice of America (@VOANews) October 14, 2021

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“I was speechless. I had read about these fish but I never expected that I would have the opportunity to touch one”, said the scientist, adding, however, that it was a stressful process. “You are on a boat in the middle of the sea, with a crane moving a huge living creature. We could not waste a minute and a lot of care was needed to prevent an accident”.

Both the involuntary capture of the fish and its release took place on October 4, and the “giant” of the sea returned to the dark depths unscathed, to the great relief of scientists and fishermen.