#Syngnathidae

[marinememes]

Today is Wet Beast Wednesday!

Today’s wet beast is: Pipefish

Olive’s wet beast fact: You’re probably thinking that these worm-on-a-string lookin ass creatures look like straightened seahorses. That’s bc they are part of the Syngnathidae family with Seahorses and Sea Dragons. Funky!

Stay tuned for more Wet Beast Wednesdays!

[herpsandbirds]

dragons are real! they're just aquatic and live among the fishes, i saw some at an aquarium back when i was on vacation :]

(you know what i'm talking about right i'm not trying to request false creature i just think its cool)

Yes, yes, there are 3 species of sea dragons...

Leafy Seadragon (Phycodurus eques), family Syngnathidae, order Syngnathiformes, found off the Southern and Western coasts of Australia

photographs by Dave Fleetham & James Rosendale

Common Seadragon or Weedy Seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus), family Syngnathidae, order Syngnathiformes, found along the southern coast of Australia

photograph by John Sear

Ruby Seadragons (Phyllopteryx dewysea), family Syngnathidae, order Syngnathiformes, found off the coast of western Australia

photographs by Zoe Della Vedova

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Second photo thanks to Fishes of Australia!

[snototter]

A common seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) in Botany Bay, NSW, Australia

by John Turnbull

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

In what kind of fish does the male get pregnant and give birth? That's right: it's the pipefish! Just like their more famous seahorse relatives, females lay their eggs into the males' brood pouch, where they are fertilized. Fully developed young hatch about two weeks later, at which point they are fully independent and may even become food for their parents.

(Image: A Gulf Pipefish (Stigmatopora narinosa) by Graham Short)

If you like what I do, consider buying me a ko-fi!

[minneral]

greater pipefish affirmations ✨

[pine-sawyer]

leafy seadragon 🐉🥬

[puphoods]

*remembers sea dragons exist*

[a-book-of-creatures]

“Entelurus aequoreus are a poor food source for seabirds such as the Atlantic puffin, Fratercula arctica.”

Still looks like an omen to build a city though.

Photography by Rebecca Nason. Quote from Goncalves, I. B. et al. (2017) Phylogeography of the snake pipefish, Entelurus aequoreus (Family: Syngnathidae) in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, XX, 1–14.

[lowcountry-gothic]

Ocean Biodiversity Print Series, by Zoe Keller:

Octopodes

Medusozoa

Syngnathidae

Deep Sea

Nudibranchia

Sharks of the World

[marinememes]

why are pipefish so ugly

YOU MADE HIM CRY. TAKE IT BACK!!!

[herpsandbirds]

Bay Pipefish (Syngnathus californiensis), family Syngnathidae, order Syngnathiformes, found in ell grass beds along the Western Coast of North America, from Alaska to Baja California, Mexico

photograph via: California Academy of Sciences

[snototter]

A common seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) against the kelp in Manly, Sydney, Australia.

by John Turnbull

[dougdimmadodo]

Bigbelly Seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis) 

Family: Pipefish Family (Syngnathidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Easily distinguished from other seahorse species thanks to their namesake large, rotund abdomens, Bigbelly Seahorses are found mainly in coastal waters surrounding New Zealand and southeastern Australia, where they typically remain in shallow-water habitats such as coral reefs (although they are highly adaptable, and may be found at depths of over 100 meters/328ft.) Like most seahorses they are slow-moving carnivores, spending much of their lives clinging to solid surfaces using their long prehensile (grasping) tails and ambushing small crustaceans (including shrimps, isopods, amphipods and small crabs) that pass by, generating suction to pull prey into their elongated tube-like snouts while their highly sensitive eyes (which, like the eyes of a chameleon, can move independently of one another) survey their surroundings for both prey and predators (such as skates, wrasses, cormorants and penguins.) Members of this species swim between perches by paddling slowly with their dorsal fins (which in most fish are on the dorsal/upper surface of the body, but which take the place of tail fins in seahorses) and while they are not typically social outside of mating they are not aggressive towards conspecifics, allowing for groups of Bigbelly Seahorses to gather together where prey is abundant. Bigbelly Seahorses reach maturity at around 1 year of age and will reproduce as many as 4 times in a single year; when ready to mate a male attempts to court females by inflating a pouch on his abdomen to appear larger, changing his colour to a brighter yellow and tucking his head downwards as he approaches - if the female accepts his advances she will similarly tuck in her head and change her colour, and the two will then solidify their bond by “dancing” together, swimming in circles around one another and often intertwining their tails as they do so. Once courtship is complete both partners will swim towards the surface where the male will position himself slightly below the female who will then deposit between 300 and 1000 unfertilized eggs in the inflated pouch on his belly, with the male fertilizing the eggs within his pouch and carrying them with him as they develop for around 30 days before he “gives birth” to a large number of small but completely independent young. Adult Bigbelly Seahorses can grow to be up to 30cm (11.8 inches) long from the tip of their tail to the top of their head, making them among the largest of all seahorse species.

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Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/69837-Hippocampus-abdominalis