Overview
- The team published the formal description in the Journal of Fish Biology on May 10, confirming the new species Solenostomus snuffleupagus.
- Sesame Workshop approved the name linked to Mr. Snuffleupagus and said the discovery fits its mission to connect science with imagination.
- Micro-CT scans revealed a small fish in the specimen’s gut, the first recorded fish meal for a ghost pipefish, and showed a count of 36 vertebrae, higher than related species.
- The fish has a long snout and shaggy orange skin filaments that help it blend with filamentous red algae on coral reefs.
- Researchers first photographed the animal in Papua New Guinea more than two decades ago, collected a male–female pair near Cairns in 2020 for study, and now report records from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Tonga.