Pink Handfishes That Don’t Swim But Walk

Fishes are strange enough as they are, but what about fishes with hands? Weird! The pink handfish, as it is called, is a part of the handfish family, and is last seen in 1999. It is now one of the newly named species of the handfishes, among nine others. 

This very odd fish doesn’t swim, and that explains why it’s located at the bottom of the ocean. It uses its “hands” that are supposed to be fins, to walk around. Tasmania, an Australian island, is the place where the nine fishes have been found, to be completely precise, around the city of Hobart. It is probably the place to be for a handfish, because all the 14 species of this kind are found nearby southeastern Australia. The little pink creature is only 4 inch large (10 cm), and the scientists don’t know that much about its behavior because it has been poorly studied.

Handfish are small fish, growing up to 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long, have skin covered with denticles (tooth-like scales), giving them the alternate name warty anglers. They are slow-moving fishes that prefer to 'walk' rather than swim, using their modified pectoral fins to move about on the sea floor. These highly modified fins have the appearance of hands, hence their scientific name, from Latin bracchium meaning "arm" and Greek ichthys meaning "fish".

Like other anglerfish, they possess an illicium, a modified dorsal fin ray above the mouth, but it is short and does not appear to be used as a fishing lure. The second dorsal spine is joined to the third by a flap of skin, making a crest.

Sources : http://planetoddity.com; http://en.wikipedia.org