---
title: Slender Sunfish (Ranzania laevis)
scientific_name: Ranzania laevis
common_name: Slender Sunfish
taxon: Ocean Sunfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-25T14:45:09.473Z
updated: 2026-08-12T13:12:48.657Z
tags: Slender Sunfish, Ranzania laevis, Ocean Sunfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/ocean-sunfishes/slender-sunfish
---

# Slender Sunfish (*Ranzania laevis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Ocean Sunfishes (*Molidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1 m
- **Depth:** 1-140 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Very Rare
- **Habitat:** Open ocean; strands inshore after storms
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- oval flattened body ending abruptly in a fringe, with no real tail
- silver-blue with a pattern of pale bars and lines over the head and flank
- small round mouth, permanently open and fixed in a vertical slit
- length up to 1 m

A sunfish that does not look like one: instead of the mola's giant gray dinner plate, this is a smooth oval body a meter (3 ft) long, silver-blue and patterned with pale bars, ending abruptly in a fringe where a tail would be. The mouth is a small permanently open vertical slit.

It is the fastest of the family. Where a mola drifts, this one swims properly, sculling with the dorsal and anal fins, and it lives in open water on jellyfish, salps and other soft plankton rather than lying at the surface. The little that is known about its behavior comes from strandings, because it is almost never seen alive by anyone.

That is the standing puzzle: mass strandings of hundreds of them happen periodically on Australian and southern African beaches, always fish of similar size, and nobody knows why. Storms, cold water and disease have all been proposed.

The skeleton is mostly cartilage and the body has no swim bladder, which for a fish that lives in open water means it must swim to stay off the bottom. What washes up looks like a mistake and is in fact a competent oceanic animal that has simply lost its argument with the weather.

## Also known as

- **English:** slender mola, slender sunfish, truncated sunfish
- **Arabic:** سمكة الشمس النحيلة, مولا نحيلة
- **French:** Poisson-lune tronqué, Ranzania
- **Italian:** Pesce luna allungato, Pesce luna nano, Pesce luna snello
- **German:** Schlanker Sonnenfisch, Stutzmondfisch
- **Spanish:** mola flaca, pez luna colitruncado, Ranzania
- **Greek:** Κολοβό φεγγαρόψαρο
- **Turkish:** uzun pervane baligi, ayi baligi
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-lua-comprido, Peixe-roda
- **Polish:** Tuloglów
- **Czech:** měsíčník protáhlý
- **Japanese:** クサビフグ, Kusabifugu
- **Chinese:** 斑點長翻車魨, 曼波, 海蟲
- **Russian:** Овальная луна-рыба
- **AF:** Rompvis
- **CA:** Peix lluna nan
- **CYM:** Pysgod Haul Main, pysgodyn haul main
- **DA:** Aflang klumpfisk
- **FI:** pikkumöhkäkala
- **HR:** Mali bucanj
- **MLT:** Qamar tawwali, Mola, Pixxiluna
- **NO:** Liten månefisk
- **SL:** Lopar
- **SQI:** Peshk lepur, peshku lepur
- **TH:** ปลาหนังช้างเล็ก

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cephalus cocherani* Traill, 1832
- *Cephalus elongatus* Risso, 1827
- *Cephalus oblongus* Shaw, 1804
- *Cephalus varius* Shaw, 1804
- *Diodon dimidiatus* Walbaum, 1792
- *Mola planci* Nardo, 1827
- *Orthragoriscus battarae* Ranzani, 1839
- *Orthragoriscus oblongus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Orthragoriscus solaris* Gronow, 1854
- *Orthragoriscus truncatus* (Retzius, 1785)
- *Orthragus oblongus* Rafinesque, 1810
- *Ostracion boops* Richardson, 1845
- *Ostracion laevis* Pennant, 1776
- *Ranzania makua* Jenkins, 1895
- *Ranzania truncata* (Retzius, 1785)
- *Ranzania typus* Nardo, 1840
- *Tetraodon truncatus* Retzius, 1785
- *Tetrodon truncatus* Retzius, 1785

## Range

Greece, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/ocean-sunfishes/slender-sunfish)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*