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Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of jellyfish, but because this diet is nutritionally poor, they consume large amounts in order to develop and maintain their great bulk.

The diet of the ocean sunfish consists primarily of various jellyfish (similar to the diet of a leatherback turtle). Additionally, it consumes salps, comb jellies, zooplankton, squid, crustaceans, small fishes, fish larvae, and eel grass.This diet is nutritionally poor, forcing the sunfish to consume a large amount of food to maintain its size. The range of food items found inside sunfish indicates that the sunfish feeds at many levels, from the surface to deep water, and occasionally down to the seafloor in some areas.

The sunfish can spit out and pull in water through its small mouth to tear apart soft-bodied prey. Its teeth are fused into a beak-like structure, allowing it to break up harder organisms. In addition, pharyngeal teeth located in the throat grind food into smaller pieces before passing them to the stomach.

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14y ago

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