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Thanks to Cosmo, William, and Silas for their fishy suggestions this week!
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\nYou have until Sept. 13, 2024 to back the enamel pin Kickstarter!
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\nFurther reading:
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\nThe Handfish Conservation Project
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\nResearchers Look in Tank and See Promising Cluster of Near-Extinct Babies
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\nThe unique visual systems of deep sea fish
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\nA red handfish:
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\nAnother red handfish. This one is named Hector:
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\nThe black dragon fish:
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\nThe white-edged freshwater whipray [photo by Doni Susanto]:
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\nShow transcript:
\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.
\nThis week we return to the vertebrate world, specifically some strange and colorful fishies. Thanks to William, Cosmo, and Silas for their suggestions!
\nWe\u2019ll start with Silas\u2019s suggestion, the red handfish. We talked about it before back in episode 189, but it\u2019s definitely time to revisit it. When we last discussed it, scientists estimated there were fewer than 100 red handfish left in the wild, meaning it was in imminent danger of extinction. Let\u2019s find out how it\u2019s doing now, four years later.
\nThe handfish gets its name because its pectoral fins look like big flat hands. It spends most of its time on the sea floor, and it uses its hands to walk instead of swimming. It can swim, although it\u2019s not a very strong swimmer, and anyway if you had great big hands you might choose to walk on them too. It doesn\u2019t have a swim bladder, which helps most fish stay buoyant.
\nAll species of handfish are small, only growing to about 6 inches long at most, or 15 cm. This is surprising considering the handfish is closely related to anglerfish, and some anglerfish can grow over 3 feet long, or about a meter.
\nAs for the red handfish specifically, it generally only grows about 4 inches long at most, or 10 cm, and it once lived in shallow water around much of Australia. These days, it\u2019s only found on two reefs southeast of Tasmania. Some populations are bright red while some are pink with red spots. It has a wide downturned mouth that makes it look like a grumpy red toad with big hands.
\nSo how is the red handfish doing? Four years ago it was almost extinct in wild, with fewer than 100 individuals alive. These days the Handfish Conservation Project estimates that the wild population is probably about the same, although because the red handfish is so small and hides so well among sea grass, algae, and rocks that make up its home, it\u2019s hard to get a good count of how many are really alive. It\u2019s also under even more pressure than before as an overpopulation of urchins is overgrazing the plants where it lives, which may sound familiar to you if you listened to episode 395 a few weeks ago. But there is one fantastic change that gives conservationists hope that the red handfish won\u2019t go extinct after all.
\nThe red handfish is so endangered, and its remaining habitat is so small, that a few years ago scientists decided they needed to start a captive breeding program. But even though the fish did just fine in captivity, they didn\u2019t breed at first. Then, in November 2023, one of the fish laid 21 eggs and all 21 hatched safely. Hopefully it won\u2019t be long until the babies are old enough to release into the wild.
\nThe red handfish is one of very few fish that hatch into tiny baby fish instead of into a larval form. Newly hatched babies are only about 5 mm long....