A giant and extremely rare sunfish has washed up on a California beach – stunning early morning visitors who stumbled across the bizarre six-foot-long creature.

The hoodwinker sunfish, or Mola tecta, was discovered at Doran Regional Park in Bodega Bay, about 60 miles north of San Francisco – made famous as the setting of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. The creature measured around six feet long and three feet wide, its body dwarfing the usual beach debris.

With its tiny mouth and lack of a visible tail, the strange-looking fish is so unusual that scientists only recognized the species in 2017.

Marine biologist Marianne Nyegaard of New Zealand, who first described the species, confirmed to the East Bay Times that the stranded animal was indeed a hoodwinker. 

She said it could be distinguished from the more common ocean sunfish because ‘the clavus is quite narrow and there is no head bump or chin bump.’

Nyegaard told the East Bay Times its presence in Northern California was surprising. ‘We know Mola tecta occurs in the Humboldt Current off South America, as far north as Peru,’ she explained. 

‘But we did not think they would cross the warm equatorial belt – at least not very often. But they definitely cross – probably by diving deep and swimming underneath the warmer equatorial surface waters.’

The unusual sighting was first reported by Stefan Kiesbye, a novelist and English professor at Sonoma State University. 

The enormous hoodwinker sunfish discovered on Doran Beach in Bodega Bay – the strange species has only been recognized by scientists since 2017

Beachgoer Stefan Kiesbye, a Sonoma State professor, (not pictured) said he was ‘still in awe’ after stumbling across the six-foot-long creature while picking up trash

He had been out picking up trash early Sunday morning when he noticed the massive creature near the western tip of the beach.

‘It’s sad that it’s been washed to shore,’ he said. ‘But it was so enormous and so weird and gorgeous. It’s like suddenly you’re on another planet.’

Kiesbye said he was ‘still in awe’ hours after finding the fish, which he initially mistook for a dead sea lion. 

Later, he Googled ‘big weird fish around here’ and found news coverage of another hoodwinker that had washed ashore in Santa Barbara in 2019 – the first time the species had ever been spotted north of the equator.

Since then, at least half a dozen hoodwinkers have washed up from Southern California to Oregon, and as far north as Alaska, leaving scientists scrambling to understand their range.

According to Sonoma County Regional Parks spokesperson Meda Freeman, several sunfish were seen offshore before the latest hoodwinker became stranded. 

One ranger said it was only the second dead sunfish he had come across in six years of coastal patrols.

Despite their alien appearance, Nyegaard said such strandings are not necessarily alarming. 

At roughly six feet in length, the massive hoodwinker was larger than most grown men and unlike anything locals had seen before

The hoodwinker, whose Latin name tecta means ‘hidden,’ has increasingly been found along the West Coast despite once being thought confined to the Southern Hemisphere

The discovery was made on the shores of Bodega Bay, a windswept inlet along Sonoma County’s coast that attracts campers, surfers and birdwatchers

‘All over the world’ sunfish can ‘strand’ – meaning they beach themselves and are unable to return to the water, she explained. ‘As far as I can tell it is not necessarily a sign of human influence.’

The hoodwinker, whose Latin name tecta means ‘hidden,’ was given its name because scientists struggled for years to realize it was a distinct species.

For beachgoers in Bodega Bay, the encounter was both eerie and unforgettable – an unexpected glimpse of one of the ocean’s strangest giants.