{"id":670261,"date":"2026-05-14T11:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670261\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:17:21","slug":"new-species-of-hairy-ghost-pipefish-named-for-mr-snuffleupagus-from-sesame-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670261\/","title":{"rendered":"New species of hairy ghost pipefish named for Mr Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AngusSave<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

AAA<\/p>\n

Call it fate, luck or instinct, but as David Harasti dived past a coral wall off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2002, a tuft of red algae floating within a shadowy overhang caught his eye. And then it moved.<\/p>\n

The fish scientist\u2019s film camera flashed, snapping a photo of the oddity which began a quarter century-long quest. That search ended in the most extraordinary discovery of Harasti\u2019s career \u2013 a new-to-science, ultra-rare and bizarre little beast named for the most mythic resident on Sesame Street, Mr Snuffleupagus.<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo specimens of a long-sought \u2018rarest of the rare\u2019 species have finally been found, pictured at the Australian Museum.Sitthixay Ditthavong<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came back to Australia I processed the film camera photos, and I actually could see an eye,\u201d Harasti, now principal research scientist at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute, recalls of the 2002 encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I could make out it was actually an animal. And it didn\u2019t exist in any of my books. I knew then it was a new species. We knew it was a type of ghost pipefish, but it was one that we\u2019d never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

He searched the world for a formal specimen of the weird, weedy creature no longer than a matchstick.<\/p>\n

\"DrDr David Harasti is a marine biologist who also works on seahorse conservation in Sydney.Courtesy David Harasti<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back to Papua New Guinea six times to go and find it; never saw it. I went to the Solomon Islands because I\u2019d heard that someone had sighted it there, and I never saw it,\u201d Harasti said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was 20 years of me looking for this species all around the Indo-Pacific, and never seeing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like an underwater Yowie, sporadic sightings of the pipefish cropped up in books and on blogs. Some saw it cloaked in orange, others in purple and green. But it was always shaggy.<\/p>\n

All the while, Harasti searched, and the fuzzy phantom flitted between scientific promise and myth.<\/p>\n

Part of his obsession was driven by the creature\u2019s likeness to Sesame Street\u2019s Mr Snuffleupagus, a galumphing yet elusive mammoth-like muppet introduced as Big Bird\u2019s imaginary best friend.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe photo that began a 25-year hunt: Dr David Harasti\u2019s first image of the hairy ghost pipefish.Dr David Harasti\"TheThe fish has an uncanny resemblance to Sesame Street\u2019s Mr Snuffleupagus.Sesame Workshop<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was this rare, mythical creature that the humans didn\u2019t believe in, if I remember correctly,\u201d Harasti said of the character. \u201cNo one ever saw him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fish\u2019s likeness to Mr Snuffleupagus in both body and spirit also captured the imagination of Graham Short, a global expert in identifying new species of syngnathids, the family of fish which includes pipefish, seahorses and seadragons. He joined the drawn-out search.<\/p>\n

Everything changed in 2020. Friends alerted Harasti that they\u2019d spied the cryptic fish on the Great Barrier Reef, and sent pictures.<\/p>\n

Harasti had a specimen collection licence and one last shot.<\/p>\n

He and Short flew to Cairns and sped to where the fish had been spotted on Saxon Reef. Nothing. Then they dived at a second location.<\/p>\n

There, 15 metres deep and within a coral nook festooned with red filamentous algae, the scientists found two of the shaggy pipefish: a male and female. Enough to describe a new species.<\/p>\n

\u201cGraham and I were hugging underwater. I kid you not. We were high-fiving, so excited that it was there,\u201d Harasti said.<\/p>\n

\"AA formal specimen of the hairy ghost pipefish, related to seahorses, was elusive for decades.David Harasti<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something I\u2019ve been searching for 20 years. It is the holy grail of the ghost pipefish world, it\u2019s the rarest of the rare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harasti collected the specimens and Short began the taxonomic work. He CT-scanned the tiny fish to scrutinise the structure of its bones, took measurements of fin rays and snout lengths, and analysed its genetics to distinguish the fish from other species.<\/p>\n

The scientists formally announced the new species in the Journal of Fish Biology<\/a> on Tuesday, naming it the hairy ghost pipefish and bestowing the scientific name Solenostomus snuffleupagus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always said to Graham, if we can get these specimens, we\u2019re going to name it after the Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street,\u201d Harasti said. He approached Sesame Workshop, the non-profit production company behind the show, to seek their blessing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were ecstatic about the whole thing,\u201d Harasti said. \u201cThis hairy ghost pipefish is so rare, so elusive, it\u2019s avoided us for so long. So everything matches: it\u2019s got the hairy filaments, it\u2019s got the long snout, it\u2019s just a really good replica of Mr Snuffleupagus underwater and it has that same mystique about it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specimens had tiny fish in their stomachs, and the species probably also feeds on mysid shrimp and zooplankton. Its conservation status isn\u2019t known but the discovery will be crucial to future conservation and protection efforts for pipefish \u2013 you can\u2019t protect something without a name.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s more common than we think; it\u2019s just so small and so well-camouflaged people probably just swim over it thinking it\u2019s just a bit of algae and they don\u2019t even realise what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harasti and Short have both discovered several species new to science \u2013 Harasti even has a type of pipefish named after him. \u201cThis is, without a doubt, our best accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s next goal is to get on Sesame Street and meet Mr Snuffleupagus.<\/p>\n

The Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

\"AngusAngus Dalton<\/a> is the science reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-670261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}