A third species of seadragon "Ruby Seadragon" found off coast of Western Australia
With so many species going extinct, I think it is wonderful news that we are finding new species in the world that are untouched by humans. :)
Ruby seadragons, a kind of spiny fish that lives in the deep waters off Western Australia, have been recorded alive and swimming for the first time by researchers at Scripps Oceanography and the Western Australian Museum.
They were first identified as a species in 2015 based on DNA sequencing of just four dried out specimens that had washed ashore or been caught in trawling nets between 1919 and 2007.
“We had very good details on where the fish in 2007 had been found, but very little other information to go on,” says Greg Rouse from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, who led the expedition to the remote Archipelago of the Recherche.
“We knew it was like finding a needle in a haystack to go and look for this thing.”
The team used a small, remotely operated vehicle to make a sequence of dives down to 55-metres deep. During the fourth and final dive, they happened upon a ruby seadragon and followed it to another, watching them both feed and move through the strong ocean swells.
