But with more than half of their three-and-a-half-hour search already over, the team hadn't found the fish. Cooper was ready to call it a day and gestured for her diving partner to call off the rest of the group. Before heading back in, she was half-heartedly fiddling with a stray piece of algae when she spotted something red in the water.

"Lo and behold, I found a red handfish," Cooper says in a video. "That was very exciting."

Cooper signaled the find to the team, which allowed them to narrow down their search to a smaller area. Within a stretch of reef about the size of a badminton court, they found a total of eight red handfish.

Named for their hand-shaped fins,