Spotted handfish

How it lives

It lives on soft sediment from about 1 to 60 m deep, and is most often seen at 5 to 15 m. It prefers hollows and ripples filled with shells. It has no swim bladder and walks on its fins. It matures at about 2 years, and one project gives a lifespan of 5 to 10 years. Spawning runs from September to November. Females lay 60 to 250 eggs on upright objects such as stalked sea squirts. The eggs hatch after about 2 months into fully formed young that settle straight onto the seabed.

Where it goes

The spotted handfish does not migrate. It has no drifting larval stage and travels little, walking slowly on its hand-like fins, so each local group stays near its own patch of seabed. Nine small groups in the Derwent Estuary have been monitored since 1997, and another was found in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel in 2015.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

The IUCN (assessed 2018, published 2020) rates it Critically Endangered, and in 1996 it was the first marine fish listed as Critically Endangered. It is also Critically Endangered under Australian law. Estimates differ: no more than about 3,000 fish (ABC News, 2025) and fewer than 2,000 (CSIRO, 2024). Across nine Derwent sites, densities ranged from 1.58 to 43 fish per hectare (Wong et al., 2018). Main concerns are the introduced northern Pacific seastar, which eats the sea squirts it lays eggs on, past scallop dredging, coastal development and moorings, and warming water. About 14,000 artificial spawning units have been placed since 1998, and the population appears to have stabilised. In April 2025, 15 captive-bred juveniles were released into the River Derwent, the first such release.