
Essay by Dr Jemina Stuart-Smith, Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania
I vividly recall uncovering my first Red Handfish from beneath a tangled mess of seaweed. I had been busy scouring the rocky reef searching for cryptic fishes and invertebrates as part of the Reef Life Survey (RLS) marine life monitoring program. We were surveying the only Red Handfish (Thymichthys politus) site known to exist at the time. It was a relatively shallow dive, with cold Tasmanian sea temperatures. I was nearing the end of my transect line, fast approaching my thermal tolerance threshold, which admittedly is not particularly high, and had begun to doubt I would see a handfish that day. Red Handfish are notoriously tough to find.