A rare walking’ fish has been discovered after 22 years in Australia. The discovery was in the depths of a marine park off Tasmania’s rugged southwest coast. It is pink handfish, a member of the anglerfish family. It has only been spotted in the wild five times. Most recently by a recreational diver off the coast of the Tasman Peninsula, south-east of Hobart, in 1999.
However, scientists made a surprising discovery during a current analysis of the Tasman Fracture Marine Park. A nationally protected conservation area the size of Switzerland, examine coral, rock lobster, and striped trumpeter fish. “We’ve been fortunate enough to do in-depth exploration. To study for Parks Australia looking at a whole range of fish species and corals and things that live on the bottom out there,” Professor Neville Barrett from the Institute of Antarctic and Marine Studies at the University of Tasmania said. “And as part of it, we’ve discovered a pink handfish.
We’re quite excited to be able to use the range of techniques now
There is a very understanding of the pink handfish. Earlier, there was an assumption that pink handfish live in waters ranging from 15 to nearly 40 metres deep off Tasmania’s east coast. The assumption is however wrong. “We’ve found [the pink handfish] in 120 metres of water, so that’s much deeper than it has ever been seen before,” Professor Barrett said.”The last sighting in 1999 was on the Tasmanian Peninsula at about 20 to 30-odd metres, and the earliest sighting before that was in about 10 metres at the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. “It was always thought they were a shallow water species and that they liked fairly sheltered waters, and here we’ve found it on the wild south coast in much deeper water.”
Researchers use a ‘baited underwater video’ to captivate fish. Into the area while causing minimal consequence on their environment. In order to study the depths of the marine park. Irrespective of the fact that the study of the marine park was in February and March of this year. There was no discovery of the pink handfish until early October. Hours of footage gathered on the expedition necessitated painstaking annotation, which was handled by IMAS research assistant Ashlee Bastiaansen.