Ocean sunfish are very large, but their eggs and newborn young are astonishingly small. The eggs, which are only about one twentieth of an inch in diameter, hatch into small fish one tenth of an inch in length. These tiny atoms grow into adults which may be over eight feet long and weigh more than 1200 pounds.
It has been estimated that the young sunfish must increase its weight approximately 60,000,000 times before it can attain the maximum size for the species.
There is probably a greater size difference between the young and adult of ocean sunfish than between the young and adult of any other animal. Even the difference in size between the young and adults of the kangaroos and opossums, great as it is, shrinks into insignificance by comparison.