I discovered a third species of seadragon,
a new species that we had no
idea existed in the oceans. To date, no
one has seen a ruby seadragon alive. All
the specimens we know are sitting in
museums or have been washed up on
beaches. We describe the species but now
what we need are live observations of
its behavior, of its morphology, and of its
habitat. We're going to the remote
areas of western Australia where we
found the ruby seadragon for the first
time, and since it seems to be living at
greater depths then we can safely
scuba-dive to we will use a little
remotely operated vehicle that has
cameras and bright lights attached to it
and we will lower to the water and it
will communicate with us on a boat and
we'll steer it through the water and we
will look for the red needle in the
haystack.
I fully expected that we knew all the
seadragon species that are out there
but the discovery showed us that we can
still find a charismatic bright red fish
that no one has ever seen before.
