Common names: mola (English), mola (Espanol), pez-sol (Espanol)
 
Masturus lanceolatus (Liénard, 1840)


Sharptail mola


Body oval, its depth ~ 2/3 its length, strongly compressed; mouth tiny, a horizontal slit when closed, opens at the front, is a beak (without a central suture) composed of teeth fused to the jaws; gill openings small, on side just before pectorals; pectorals short, rounded; no pelvics; no tail base;  dorsal fin ~ 19, anal fin ~ 16, pectoral fin ~ 9, tail fin ~ 19; dorsal and anal fins long, high and curved, symmetrical, used for locomotion, at rear of body, their rear rays joined to tail fin immediately behind them that is reduced to a vertically elongate, short, blunt rudder, without bony ossicles on its margin, with an elongate central tip; skin thick, tough, with small denticles.




Grey brown above, silvery below, fins dark.

        Size: 332 cm.

Habitat: oceanic.

        
        Depth: 0-670 m.

        Circumglobal, tropical to warm temperate; juveniles collected between Clipperton and the Galapagos, an adult at La Paz, SW Gulf of California.