Picture a fish shaped like a giant pancake with fins, or as one observer put it, “little more than a large head.”

Now imagine that 5,000-pound marine oddball stranded on a Florida beach, flopping helplessly in the shallows. That’s the scene one Volusia County deputy stumbled upon recently — and what followed was a rescue mission involving grit, creativity, and a rope straight out of a cowboy’s toolkit.

The mola mola, also known as an ocean sunfish, had wandered too close to shore near Ponce Inlet, its comically bulky body wedged between a seawall and the retreating tide. “They are clumsy swimmers, waggling their large dorsal and anal fins to move and steering with their clavus,” the Volusia Sheriff’s Office later said, quoting the National Geographic.

Photo by Volusia Sheriff’s Office

But clumsiness wasn’t its only problem. “The mola is the heaviest of all the bony fish,” the agency added, noting the species can grow to the size of a compact car.  “They are oddly shaped, commonly described to look like half a fish,” according to the National Park Services.

When swimming upright, these gentle giants are often mistaken for sharks because of the way their dorsal fin rises from the water.”

Deputy Ric Urquhart, a former beach safety officer, sprang into action. Body cam footage shows his first attempt: grappling the sunfish by a fin and wiggling it toward deeper water. When that failed, he pivoted to a more unorthodox strategy. “Work smarter,” Urquhart said, looping a rope around the fish’s midsection and spinning it like a rodeo bull until it faced open water. “He’s still good and alive,” Urquhart said, as the freed mola mola finally swam away. “What he’s doing in here, I have no idea. Normally, they like to hang out offshore… It’s like watching a Roomba.”

Photo by Volusia Sheriff’s Office

The spectacle drew laughs online, but the encounter underscored serious challenges for these gentle giants. “Sunfish frequently get snagged in drift gill nets and can suffocate on sea trash, like plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish,” the sheriff’s office posted. Though this fish escaped trouble, molas remain vulnerable to human-made hazards.

Urquhart’s rodeo tactics, however, proved a win for both fish and folklore. “They are harmless to people but can be very curious and will often approach divers,” officials said, praising the deputy’s quick thinking. As for the mola mola? It returned to the ocean, leaving behind a lesson as big as its profile: even the quirkiest creatures sometimes need a hand — or a lasso — to find their way home.

Sources: Miami Herald | People