{"id":682931,"date":"2026-06-04T01:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/682931\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:36:10","slug":"new-fish-species-looks-just-like-mr-snuffleupagus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/682931\/","title":{"rendered":"New fish species looks just like Mr. Snuffleupagus"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s surely no surprise that my favorite Sesame Street character is Aloysius Snuffleupagus, a.k.a. Mr. Snuffleupagus, a.k.a. Snuffy. I mean, it’s not a secret that I’m a sucker for an awesome snout, and Snuffy’s snout \u2014 which is technically a trunk affectionately known as a “snuffle” \u2014 is just about the best one of all time. Snuffy’s also fluffy, kind, and does a mean\u00a0snuffle shuffle<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 what’s not to love?<\/p>\n

But you know what’s possibly even better than Mr. Snuffleupagus? A new fish species named after sweet Snuffy! The adorable creature is the subject of a recent article in the\u00a0Journal of Fish Biology. The\u00a0paper<\/a>, written by marine biologist David Harasti (Port Stephens Fisheries Institute, Taylors Beach, NSW, Australia) and ichthyologist and taxonomist Graham Short (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco and the Australian Museum Research Institute, Sydney) is titled, “Solenostomus snuffleupagus\u00a0sp. nov., a hairy ghost pipefish (Teleostei: Solenostomidae) from the Southwest Pacific, with an integrative comparison to\u00a0S. paegnius.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s a pretty dense read, but if you want a more general-public-friendly article,\u00a0Scientific American\u00a0recently published a\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0about the discovery of\u00a0Solenostomus snuffleupagus\u00a0\u2014 what they describe as the “strange, tiny fish” that’s “red and shockingly hairy” and that “resembles the famous Sesame Street character.”\u00a0In their YouTube\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0about the discovery, Scientific American describes Solenostomus snuffleupagus, a.k.a. the “Hairy Ghost Pipefish” as having “flowing filaments, a long snout, and a shaggy silhouette.” They also posit that it shares an “uncanny” resemblance to the beloved fuzzy Sesame Street Character.<\/p>\n

Scientific American\u00a0provides more details<\/a> of the little snouted fella:<\/p>\n

S. snuffleupagus, which measures between one and 1.5 inches long and is found in the southwest Pacific Ocean, is now the seventh known species of ghost pipefish. These animals are relatives of\u00a0seahorses<\/a>\u00a0and known for their remarkable camouflage\u2014likely the evolutionary function of the new species’ dramatic look. “They resemble bits of floating red algae,” [ichthyologist and taxonomist Graham] Short says. “You can easily see a lot of divers going by this fish and not realizing it’s an actual fish.”<\/p>\n

They further quote Short, who stated, “It was so easy to say, ‘Yeah, this looks like Snuffleupagus.’ I mean, it’s almost identical. It’s scary. . . We may have had a few drinks and decided to e-mail Sesame Street Australia. And they answered the following day!”<\/p>\n

The find is especially exciting because scientists don’t currently know much about ghost pipefishes, as they are small and elusive. CT scans prove that new lil’ Snuffy is definitely its own species, though, as it has more vertebrae than its close relatives, which it diverged from about 18 million years ago.\u00a0S. snuffleupagus\u00a0is also much more hairy than other species, although its hair isn’t like mammal hair. Rather, the ‘hairs’ are actually filaments attached to the hard bony plates that operate like exoskeletons. Again, Short really has a way with words when he describes\u00a0S. snuffleupagus’ furry look: “Other species can be a little bit hairy in certain spots, like under the snout . . . But this one took the hairy form all the way. I mean, it looks ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

Ridiculously cute, I think he means!<\/p>\n

Go read more about S. snuffleupagus in Scientific American<\/a>. The\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0also includes photos, so you should go take a look!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Previously:
\u2022 It’s time to celebrate the hideous hagfish<\/a>
\u2022 These fish know when you are staring at their kids and they don’t like it<\/a>
\u2022 These are the world’s deepest fish ever filmed and caught (video)<\/a>
\u2022 Aggressive, carnivorous, air-breathing, land-walking invasive fish spotted in Louisiana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s surely no surprise that my favorite Sesame Street character is Aloysius Snuffleupagus, a.k.a. Mr. Snuffleupagus, a.k.a. Snuffy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[293553,297141,297142,297143,56652,297144,79,9479,297145,34361],"class_list":["post-682931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-david-harasti","tag-graham-short","tag-ichthyology","tag-journal-of-fish-biology","tag-marine-biology","tag-mr-snuffleupagus","tag-science","tag-sesame-street","tag-solenostomus-snuffleupagus","tag-taxonomy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}