{"id":109773,"date":"2025-08-01T08:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T08:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109773\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T08:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T08:26:16","slug":"office-worker-finds-endangered-spotted-handfish-dead-on-hobart-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109773\/","title":{"rendered":"Office worker finds endangered spotted handfish dead on Hobart street"},"content":{"rendered":"

A critically endangered spotted handfish found dead on a Hobart street was largely intact and looked as if it had just “flopped out of the water” when discovered by office worker John Retallick.<\/p>\n

Mr Retallick found the fish, Brachionichthys hirsutus, on Victoria Street in the city centre last week <\/strong>when he briefly left his office to purchase groceries at a milk bar.<\/p>\n

He has donated the unusual find to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, where genetic samples have been taken and the handfish preserved for future research.<\/p>\n

An estimated 2,000 spotted handfish exist in the wild.<\/p>\n

Mr Retallick remains shocked by his find.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This takes the cake \u2026 it sure beats the pademelon that lives in our front yard.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

John Retallick with Richard Hale from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. (Supplied: John Retallick)<\/p>\n

Carlie Devine, principal investigator in spotted handfish research at the CSIRO, said the fish may have ended up on a city street after being taken by a seabird.<\/p>\n

“It is a really interesting story: how did an iconic Tassie fish end up in the CBD?” Ms Devine said.<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty incredible.”<\/p>\n

‘Still damp’ and in good condition<\/p>\n

When Mr Retallick stumbled upon the dead fish, he immediately knew what it was.<\/p>\n

“I went, ‘Oh my god, that’s a handfish!'” he said.<\/p>\n

“Part of me thought, ‘Has someone stolen this?'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He rushed back to his office for a container and found a reusable glass coffee cup.<\/p>\n

“I filled it with water and just got it [the fish] and popped it in,” Mr Retallick said.<\/p>\n

\"Dead<\/p>\n

It’s estimated there are 2,000 spotted handfish in the wild. (Supplied: John Retallick)<\/p>\n

He said the handfish was “still damp” when he found it and later realised it was missing a fin.<\/p>\n

Mr Retallick, who had previously worked at the museum, contacted friend and former colleague Richard Hale so he could donate the specimen.<\/p>\n

“I called [Richard] and said, ‘I’ll give you a million-to-one odds if you can guess what I’ve just found on the street.'”<\/p>\n

Mr Retallick hopes its inclusion in the museum’s collection will help improve knowledge of the species.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Handfish likely died of natural causes<\/p>\n

There are 14 handfish species, all of which are found only in southern Australia and mostly in Tasmania.<\/p>\n

The spotted handfish inhabits the Derwent Estuary in Tasmania, where it lives in sheltered coastal bays.<\/p>\n

\"Derwent<\/p>\n

A spotted handfish in a tank at the CSIRO. (ABC News: Aneeta Bhole)<\/p>\n

The elusive species uses its “hands” to walk, rather than swim, through the soft sediment it likes to inhabit.<\/p>\n

Once common, the species has experienced a rapid decline and faces many threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These include water pollution, predation from introduced species such as the northern Pacific seastar, and habitat destruction by boat mooring chains and historical fishing practices.<\/p>\n

Ms Devine thought it was likely the handfish found by Mr Retallick died of natural causes.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Carlie Devine says it is plausible a seabird picked up the handfish and left it in the city. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

Spotted handfish have a short life span of five to 10 years.<\/p>\n

The specimen’s large size of approximately 11 centimetres suggests it reached a natural, albeit sad, endpoint as an adult handfish.<\/p>\n

Ms Devine said it was likely there was a simple explanation for its death and discovery, particularly because of its missing upper fin.<\/p>\n

“It looks like something has had a go at it,” Ms Devine said.<\/p>\n

“It possibly being translocated by a seabird sounds pretty plausible.”<\/p>\n

She said if a dead handfish was found, it should be put in a freezer straight away and reported to the Wildlife Incidents Hotline at NRE Tasmania or the National Handfish Recovery Team. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“We do get the occasional email from the public about seeing one.<\/p>\n

“They’re so precious, it’s always sad when you hear one has washed up.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rare specimen enters museum collection<\/p>\n

Senior curator at the museum David Hocking said the largely intact specimen was a rare example of an adult spotted handfish in the state collection.<\/p>\n

\"Spotted<\/p>\n

The spotted handfish is now held by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. (Supplied: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery)<\/p>\n

It now offers present and future opportunities for research on the species.<\/p>\n

“These sorts of specimens are really valuable because they give us a record of the species at a moment in time,” Dr Hocking said.<\/p>\n

“It means that researchers in the future can keep coming back to these specimens to look at them to see how the population genetics might change over time.”<\/p>\n

Dr Hocking said there had been much speculation about how the handfish came to be on Victoria Street, but agreed with Ms Devine about what might have happened.<\/p>\n

“It possibly washed up on a beach \u2026 [and] was probably picked up by a seabird, flown over, and dropped in town,” he said.<\/p>\n

“A seabird lost its lunch, but science has gained a specimen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He encouraged the public to contact appropriate organisations if any “rare” or “unusual” animal specimens were found, but warned against touching birds because of avian influenza.<\/p>\n

“Get in touch and someone can go and investigate it,” Dr Hocking said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A critically endangered spotted handfish found dead on a Hobart street was largely intact and looked as if…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":109774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[39658,69901,746,9251,69899,69900,159,9569,69898,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-109773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-critically-endangered","9":"tag-endangered-fish","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-fish","12":"tag-fish-found-on-hobart-street","13":"tag-handfish","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-species","16":"tag-spotted-handfish","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114952561425434315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}