Sunfish Sightings off Scottish West Coast

You may have seen that sightings of sunfish in Scottish waters made the news this weekend. It is not unusal to see sunfish in Scottish waters at this time of year. This year, 4 sightings of sunfish have been reported so far, with 2 sightings last week off Skye and Ardnamurchan. Similar numbers were reported last year, when 4 sightings of sunfish were also reported to HWDT.

Sunfish are one of our summer visitors here in the Hebrides, and their very distinctive appearance makes them quite easy to identify. There are the heaviest boney fish, growing up to 3.3 m in length, and weighting up to 2300 kg! You can read more facts about these extraordinary ocean wanderers below:

Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled and if you do spot a sunfish, please submit your sighting to Whale Track, our free community sightings app and website. You can also explore past sightings using our interactive sightings map and table, which can be filtered by species and date.