LONG BEACH -- If fish were Hollywood actors, the ocean sunfish probably wouldn't land the leading roles.

Let's just say it's not the most attractive thing in the sea, looking rather like a giant, swimming fish head with two large fins protruding from its top and bottom. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

"They're not classically beautiful,' said Dan Cartamil, "but I think they're beautiful.'

Cartamil recently completed research on the ocean sunfish, also known as the mola mola, while earning his master's degree in marine biology at Cal State Long Beach. He became smitten with the fish years earlier as a biologist working aboard commercial fishing boats.

There, Cartamil discovered that large numbers of the species were being caught in gill nets by fishermen in search of swordfish and thresher sharks. Because molas have nothing in the way of local commercial appeal, they were simply being discarded as unwanted bycatch.

Molas, which can grow as large as 10 feet long and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds the largest on record was about 4,000 pounds like to linger at depths favored by commercial fishing boats. As a result, they account for roughly 30 percent of the total catch of California's gill net fisheries.

Cartamil, a 33-year-old who was raised in New York, opted to study their plight at CSULB, but he quickly learned that there wasn't a whole lot written about the mola. Though the sunfish has been a popular attraction at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, much of its behavior is a relative mystery, as is its impact on the overall ecosystem.

"There's a whole slew of ramifications that are possible, but we just don't know,' he said.

In the autumns of 2001 and 2002, Cartamil tracked eight ocean sunfish off the Southern California coast, tagging each with an acoustic telemetry device that transmitted data on depth and water temperature through electronic "pings.'

Using this technique, he found that molas tend to take numerous dives to deeper, colder depths during the day probably in search of food and return to warmer waters near the surface a few moments later.

But at night, they tend to stay inactive near the surface, with about 75 percent of them resting in the upper 20 meters. This can be a problem, said Cartamil, because that's when fishermen cast their gill nets, which are required to sit at a minimum depth of 12 meters.

According to Cartamil's research, if commercial fisheries were to lower their nets to 20 meters, they could reduce the number of captured molas by about 30 percent. Chris Lowe, a professor in CSULB's marine biology department, said this practice could save plenty of molas while helping fisheries avoid the bad press that comes with unused bycatch.

"I think this is one of those few projects that could have a really positive impact,' he said. "Here is a species that really isn't that important to U.S. fisheries, but it's very important in Asian markets. We may actually be able to get a jump on this species before it gets into trouble.'

Still, Cartamil and others are unsure if lowering the nets will hamper efforts to reel in targeted catches like swordfish and thresher sharks. He says further research is needed.

Cartamil's work has been presented to the National Marine Fisheries Service and is expected to be published within the next few months in the Marine Ecology Progress Series, a prominent journal in the field.

"This piece we just collected is a small piece in a much larger puzzle,' he said, "but it's an important piece.'

In the meantime, Cartamil, who now works as a research assistant under Lowe at CSULB, said his research has already dispelled some rumors about molas, which have historically been pegged as poor swimmers that drift lazily with the currents. The scientist described them as friendly and curious creatures that travel approximately 30 kilometers in a given day.

"That's pretty respectable,' Cartamil said.