The rarest walking fish has been spotted in the south-east of Australia, it was caught on people’s eyes for the first time in 25 years. This is reported in a press release of the Australian State Association of Scientific and Applied Research (CSIRO).
The fish, first discovered by scientists since 1996 in the area of a remote island in the Bass Strait, belongs to the species Pezichthys compressus. Its representatives are able to walk on the bottom on fins, using them as hands. It has only been seen twice before: in 1986 and 1996. In both cases, it occurred off the coast of the Australian state of Victoria.
The preferred habitat and potential abundance of Pezichthys compressus remains unknown. The new specimen was found during an expedition to investigate the impact of climate change on the marine environment off the southeast coast of Australia.
CSIRO researcher Carly Devine said the fish was at a depth of 292 meters near the edge of an underwater canyon near Flinders Island, northeast of mainland Tasmania. “Finding this fish is incredibly difficult,” she emphasized.
