What is the rarest fish in the world?
The ocean gives us many curiosities and unusual discoveries, one of which concerns the rarest fish in the world . Do you want to know who he is and where he lives? You are in the right place!
The Thymichthys Politus: the rarest fish in the world
The rarest fish in the world is the Thymichthys Politus , nicknamed ” Red Handfish ” . In fact, this species does not swim , but uses its front flippers as hands to walk very slowly on the bottom and to cling to the rocks of the Australian coral reef.
It is the rarest fish in the world because according to scholars at the Australian Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) there are fewer than 100 specimens , and it is therefore at risk of extinction, probably due to the deterioration of its natural habitat and the fact that it lays its eggs at the base of the algae , which are also decreasing. Marine biologists hope that the necessary measures will be implemented to protect it.
The fish family to which the Red Handfish belongs is the Brachionichthyidae , characterized by fins so modified that they look like real hands. They have a length ranging from 6 to 13.5 cm and feed mainly on small crustaceans and worms.
In 2018, a team of divers from IMAS, together with a group of researchers from the Reef Life Survey project, discovered a new small colony of Thymichtys Politus also in the Tasman Sea , several kilometers away from the place where the first discovered specimens lived. . This highlighted that it is a fish capable of adapting to different environments.
In the same year the Handfish Conservation project was born , a recovery plan for some very rare fish species that are at risk from habitat loss and pollution .
The Romanichthys Valsanicola: the rarest fish in Europe
We have discovered which is the rarest fish in the world, but the asprete whose Latin name is Romanichthys Valsanicola also deserves a mention , a fish that was thought to be extinct but was instead spotted in 2020 in the waters of Valsan, in central Romania . In addition to being a rare fish, it is also ancient because it is contemporary with the last dinosaurs that became extinct.
Another very ancient specimen is the frilled shark , which lives in the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The peculiarity, apart from its appearance, lies in the way it eats its prey, which resembles that of some snakes.
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