Updated March 25, 2024
(From DiscoverWildlife Jan. 31, 2024) Amid concerns about the risk of upcoming marine heatwaves, 25 critically endangered red handfish have been removed from the wild in a bid to save the species from extinction.
The population of red handfish remaining in the wild has just dropped from around 100 to 75, as 25 individuals were taken into care at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS).
The discovery of a new group of weird fish — which sport bright-red, Mohawk-like fins on their head and finger-like fins on their sides to help them “walk” on the ocean floor — has delighted the divers who encountered them, just as they were trying to document the extremely endangered species.
Until now, scientists had known of only one population — that is, one group — of red handfish (Thymichthys politus, although it was formerly known as Brachionichthys politus). That group comprises between 20 and 40 individual fish that are living in Frederick Henry Bay, off the southeastern coast of the island of Tasmania, Australia.
Last week, divers from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and the citizen science project Reef Life Survey (RLS) encountered a new population, which also has between 20 and 40 of these bizarre, punkish-looking fish.
Video: YouTube.com/IMAS – Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
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