Mola Molas Photo Goes Viral, Becomes Oddly Successful Internet Hit

Mola Molas are one of the more strange sea creatures to roam the waters of California and in 2012 the fish have been surfacing at record-breaking rates. Also known as ocean sunfish they are extremely friendly and as San Diego photographer Daniel Botelho learned, beautiful to capture on film.

Botelho posted a photo he took of the Mola Molas on his Facebook page and almost instantly it was an internet viral sensation.

According to Botelho in an interview with GrindTV:

“It got 1,000 ‘likes’ in 36 hours.”

Then the social sharing praise kept coming with more than 1,375 likes and 1,237 shares.

What is most amazing is that Botelho did not provide a backstory for the photo, allowing his award-winning underwater photography style to speak for itself.

The photo was actually taken in July 2010 during a blue whale photography mission. Botelho says he placed the image in his “non-used” images folder and simply forgot about it until last week when he stumbled upon his earlier work.

Molas are friendly in demeanor but hard to photograph because they actually move swiftly for their borish size and because they tend to flee when divers get to close, making them hard capture on film.

Funny back story, the photographer captured next to the Mola Molas was actually trying to take a picture of Botelho to show just how big the ocean sunfish can grow. The fish are capable of sizes up to 14 feet long while weighing up to 5,000 pounds.

What do you think about the Mola Mohla picture captured by Daniel Botelho?