Run For Your Lives: Fish With Hands!

Found only off the shallow coastal waters of your darkest NIGHTMARES southeastern Australia, I present to you, our Gamma Squad audience: the handfish! Only four* actual specimens of these elusive bastards have ever been found and that’s why, not until now, scientists are finally able to formally confirm them as a unique species (no sh-t?). I don’t mean to be a d–k here, but shouldn’t have the “fish that have hands” thing kind of been the obvious indicator that we may have discovered a new species? Oh science, when will you ever learn…

Via that magazine with all the boobs in it National Geographic:

…the pink handfish is one of nine newly named species described in a recent scientific review of the handfish family.

Though no one has spotted a living pink handfish since 1999, it’s taken till now for scientists to formally identify it as a unique species.

The new-species determinations were made based on a number of factors, including number of vertebrae and fin rays, coloration, the presence of scales and spines, and proportional body measurements, according to review author Daniel Gledhill of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO.

I think it goes without saying that these gill breathers are better looking than most of my ex girlfriends, so in a sense, things could be worse. At least they haven’t yet discovered a fish with human genitalia -when that happens, I’ll take it as my cue to throw back these sparkling cyanide capsules, because that’s pretty much the only thing more terrifying than this fish-with-hands scenario.

Special thanks to io9 for the tip.

CORRECTION:

* only four of the pink handfish species have been found. Sorry.