It’s “hairy,” bright orange or red and “exceptional” at camouflaging. Meet the hairy ghost pipefish, whose recent formal description demonstrates that even well-studied marine environments like the Great Barrier Reef still hold remarkable secrets for science.
In a recent study, researchers shared the name of the ghost pipefish, Solenostomus snuffleupagus, for its “conspicuously shaggy appearance,” and long, trunk-like snout that makes it resemble the beloved Sesame Street character, Mr. Snuffleupagus.
Ghost pipefish, with their long pipe-like snouts, are distantly related to pipefishes and seahorses. But they differ in how they reproduce: while males in pipefish and seahorses brood eggs in specialized abdominal pouches; in ghost pipefish, it’s females who do the same.
Found across the tropical Indo-Pacific, ghost pipefish are also very well-camouflaged in their environments of coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and algal beds. Until recently, there were just six known species.
The discovery of a seventh species, the hairy ghost pipefish, led by marine biologists Graham Short and David Harasti, is the culmination of a two-decade search.
Harasti, a senior research scientist at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute in Australia, told Popular Science he first spotted the animal in 2001 while diving near Papua New Guinea. “I was perplexed,” Harasti said, adding that after checking his reference books, he realized they “might be looking at something entirely new to science.”
Since 2005, local divers had also regularly reported seeing the orange-red animal on the Great Barrier Reef on Facebook groups and citizen science platforms like iNaturalist, the authors wrote.
They said the animal remained misidentified and scientifically undescribed, because it was frequently confused with the rough snout ghost pipefish (S. paegnius) that has a similar “hairy” look .
The hairy ghost pipefish also has “exceptional” camouflaging, visually mimicking drifting red macroalgae.
Short told Science News the fish have evolved to move like floating debris. “They’re just stunning underwater… It’s just amazing that they’re actually fish,” he said.
He added that Harasti and he brought back a female and a male ghost pipefish from the Great Barrier Reef in 2022 for formal identification.
Their examination revealed that S. snuffleupagus has 36 vertebrae, more than the other known ghost pipefish, and unique “star-shaped bony” structures in its skin. Genetic analysis showed it split off from its closest relative into its own lineage roughly 18 million years ago, according to the study
As for Sesame Street inspiring the new-to-science species’ name, Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of global education at Sesame Workshop, said in a statement to Popular Science: “Connecting science with imagination and discovery is what Sesame Street has always been about, and this charming new species is a wonderful reminder that there is still so much to explore and learn about the world.”
Banner image: Solenostomus snuffleupagus, in situ, Papua New Guinea, 2003. Photograph by David Harasti via Journal of Fish Biology (CC BY 4.0).
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