Fish with Hands Discovered, But Species Face Extinction

[Sisyphus]

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, says nine new species of handfish are described in research that says there's an urgent need to better understand and protect the diversity of life in our oceans. The Pink Handfish, shown above, is one of the newly named species. It's known from only four specimens and was last recorded off the Tasman Peninsula in 1999.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nine-fish-with-hands-discovered-almost-extinct-handfish.php

Credit: CSIRO

[Marshall]

Several years back there was an article in the SciAm which conjectured about the evolution of limbs (like arms and legs) in fishes.

I don't remember perfectly but it said that fish with strong articulate limbs might have evolved in shallow, weed-infested bodies of water. The fish would have an easier time getting through the weeds. It could hide in dense growth and get away from predators---or just use the environment more effectively or something.

We have a small weed-grown pond with some goldfish and I sometimes see them having a hard time getting through patches of weed. Because all they can do is wiggle. Sometimes this doesn't work very well, or has unpredictable results for the fish. Their fins are not stiff and articulated with muscle, so their fins actually don't help much except in open water. All they can do in weed is wiggle the entire body which looks pretty spastic sometimes.

Periodically I have to go rake out some of the weed and put it on the compost. I found the SciAm article about this quite credible, although the artist conceptions looked bizarre, very much like the photograph you posted here, or worse. A fish with arms in front and even something like hands looks really kooky.