Image credit: Antonia Cooper, Reef Life Survey.

A new population of a species believed to be the world’s rarest fish has been found off the coast of Tasmania, Australia in Frederick Henry Bay. The Red handfish (Thymichthys politus) is rare because it walks on the seafloor instead of swimming.

The population of the fish was estimated to be 20-40 individuals until a team of divers from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and the citizen science project Reef Life Survey (RLS) located another population of the fish this month.

The new find doubles the known population of the red handfish.

Read more at The Maritime Executive.