After nearly 20 years of searching, researchers have officially recorded this elusive hairy ghost pipefish and named a new species after the equally hairy Muppet.
Solenostomus snuffleupagus, named after the Sesame Street character Big Bird’s best friend Snufflepagus, looks like a woolly mammoth with long brown fur and a long tee.It has long, ungainly eyelashes, but no fangs.
Researchers have been searching for the fish since 2002 and finally discovered it while diving near the Australian state of Queensland in 2020, lead researcher Graham Short said in an emailed statement to USA TODAY.
Short’s discovery was published in the Journal of Fish Biology, which documents the discovery.
Video of the fish, which Short called “Snuffy,” shows it swimming underwater near coral and bobbing with the current. Also in the footage, the fish is covered in what appears to be bright peach fur. Although it looks fuzzy, its fur is actually skin fibers that help camouflage the filamentous red algae that live on coral reefs, Short said.
See Snuffy swimming near the reef
Watch the video of the hairy fish named after the ‘Sesame Street’ character
Scientists have discovered Solenostomus snufflepagus, a hairy ghost pipefish that resembles Mr. Snufflepagus from “Sesame Street.”
Why was this fish named after the Muppets?
Well, because they look like the furry Muppets from “Sesame Street.”
“This fish is almost entirely covered in long, hairy skin fibers and has an elongated snout,” Short said. “The moment you place it next to an image of Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street, it’s impossible to miss the resemblance.”
“We knew right away what the name had to be, and Sesame Workshop was overjoyed when we reached out to ask for their blessing,” he added.
Where can I find the hairy ghost pipefish?
The fuzzy fish is found on coral reefs in Oceania near Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia, according to the study.
Short said study co-author David Harasty first photographed the fish living on the walls of a coral reef in Papua New Guinea in 2002.
“When I got home and processed the photos, I realized I could identify the eyes and I was looking at an animal that didn’t exist in the picture book,” Short said. “He spent the next 20 years trying to find it again, returning to Papua New Guinea six times and also traveling to the Solomon Islands.”
But each time, Harasti came back empty-handed. But Short said it quickly became a “personal obsession.” Eventually, in 2020, Harasty’s obsession paid off when his friends told him they had found the fish in the Great Barrier Reef and sent him a photo.
Short and Harasty visited the site where the fish was spotted in the Cairns area of Queensland, Australia. The first dive found nothing. But they dove again, and this time they spotted two hairy pipefish, a male and a female, covered in red algae in a coral corner about 50 feet below the surface.
“David and I were hugging and high-fiving underwater,” Short said. “Twenty years of searching came to fruition in that moment.”
Hairy ghost pipefish first discovered in 1993
Short and Harasty weren’t the first to discover the hairy ghost pipefish. Short said researchers from the Field Museum in Chicago, the Australian Museum and Australia’s Northern Territory Museum first discovered the fish in 1993 while surveying a remote area outside the Great Barrier Reef.
The researchers spent three weeks surveying the area and collecting specimens of the fish, now known as “fish.” Solenostomus snuffleupagus. Helen Larson, a member of the Australian Society of Fish Biology, recognized that the fish did not match any previously recorded species.
Julia Gomez is a trends reporter for USA TODAY, covering invasive species, space phenomena, scientific research, natural disasters, and trending news. Connect with her on LinkedIn ×Instagram, TikTok: @juliamariegz or email jgomez@gannett.com.
