Local knowledge guides rediscovery of spinach pipefish, not seen in four decades

Those efforts paid off on June 18, 2026, when local fisherwoman Helen Asu showed up with two spinach pipefish she caught with her umben, a traditional hand net. She’d been out fishing for prawns on the Sepik River in Imbando, a village in East Sepik province.

Helen Asu, a local fisherwoman who caught the two spinach pipefish that made the rediscovery possible, with her umben. Image courtesy of New Guinea Binatang Research Centre.