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Over the past century, scientists have learned a great deal about the thousands of fish species found on tropical coral reefs. They’ve determined what many of them eat, how they breed, and where they sit on the tree of life. However, when it comes to knowing how long these fishes live, scientists really haven’t got a clue.
That’s why the discovery of an 81-year-old midnight snapper off the coast of Broome, Australia, is forcing marine biologists to reevaluate their perception of tropical reef fish longevity.
The snapper is two decades older than the previous record holder for tropical reef fishes. “That was quite a surprising thing for me to see,” says Brett Taylor, a fish ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), who helped find the senior fish. The octogenarian snapper is one of 11 snappers over the age of 60 discovered by Taylor and his colleagues off the coast of Western Australia between 2016 and 2020.