For the first time in modern history, a marine fish species has been declared extinct. The smooth handfish (Sympterichthys unipennis), a shallow-water bottom-dweller with spiky fins and a barb-like protrusion on its forehead, has not been seen since 1802, when French biologist François Péron helped scoop one up near the coast of Tasmania to bring back to Paris’s Natural History Museum.

Despite extensive searches over many years, no smooth handfish were ever seen again. In May, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global consortium of scientists that sets the conservation statuses of species, formally listed it as extinct.

Thirteen other species of handfish—so named because they perch on the seafloor on fins that look like little hands