The ocean sunfish (Mola mola) holds the record for the most eggs of any vertebrate. How many eggs can one female carry at a time?
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Answer
About 300 million eggs
A sunfish hatchling is about 2.5 mm long, while an adult can weigh more than a tonne, one of the most extreme growth stories among animals with a backbone.
How to estimate it
The count comes from one dissected female, but it can be checked. Suppose her ovary weighed 20 kg, a modest share of a fish that can weigh hundreds of kilograms. Unripe eggs are about 0.5 mm wide, so each has a volume of 0.52 × 0.5³ = 0.065 cubic millimetres and weighs 0.065 mg. 20,000,000 mg / 0.065 mg is about 300 million. The recorded figure is 300,000,000 eggs.
Source: Guinness World Records
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