What’s in a Name?
by Jack Kittredge
In 1971 Sesame Street added a large and friendly Muppet monster to the cast. He was over six feet tall, hairy, reddish-orange, a good friend of Big Bird, resembled an anteater and was named Aloysius Snuffleupagus,. But Big Bird was the only one who could see him. The creature was shy and would always shuffle off the screen just as other characters showed up.
Big Bird insisted that he was real, but everybody else assumed he was the bird’s ‘imaginary friend’.
This lasted for 14 years until the show’s producers decided that it wasn’t a good idea to discourage children from going to their parents by featuring a storyline where a character wasn’t believed by grown-ups. So in 1985 they slowly introduced Snuffy to the others in the cast, even if they had to grab his trunk when he wanted to leave.
It turns out, however, that Mr. Snuffleupagus was destined to meet an even larger public. In 2003 marine biologist David Harasti was diving off Papua New Guinea when he saw a creature that was reddish-orange, hairy, and had what looked like a trunk. The only difference was that it was only one and a half inches long and lived underwater.
Harasti suspected right away that this was a scientifically-undescribed animal. He searched until he found other specimens, checked museums to be sure it was not already known. Then, teaming up with an Australian ichthyologist named Graham Short, they wrote the paper describing the new species, got their nerve up and contacted Sesame Street Australia about the name.
“They answered the following day”, Harasti says.
It is now officially called Solenostomus snuffleupagus, is a fish, and technically the seventh known species of ghost pipefish. Pipefish are relatives of seahorses and these likely use their vivid coloring as camouflage, resembling floating bits of red algae. The hair is really filaments on the hard, bony plates that act as exoskeleton for ghost pipefish, which don’t have traditional fish skin.
“Other species can be a little bit hairy in certain spots, like under the snout,” says Short. “But this one took the hairy form all the way. I mean, it looks ridiculous.”
