Shorthead seahorse
Posted by mlssa on 10/18/2018
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Observation details
| When did you see it? | Species guess | Current ID |
|---|---|---|
| 1990-01-01 | Shorthead Seahorse |
Shorthead seahorse Hippocampus breviceps |
Activity
sascha_schulz commented
Snout looks a bit long... @markmcg
markmcg commented
H. breviceps would have been my ID. Do you think differently @humuhumufish, @rfoster or @dijb?
markmcg commented
Fascinating! Thank you @rfoster. :)
sascha_schulz commented
@sharejosie one for you and the gang.
sharejosie commented
@sascha_schulz so cute! The females are incredibly small.
sascha_schulz suggested an ID
Improving
rfoster suggested an ID
It's one of the ones that, for whatever reason, fails to settle on the bottom, sexually mature and take on typical adult proportions. These just keep 'rafting' and growing, retaining the juvenile proportions (elongate body & long snout) and getting much bigger than breeding adults. I suspect that they may come around from WA on the Leeuwin Current but that remains untested. I did sequence a couple of mitochondrial DNA loci from these guys and local 'regular' breviceps and the haplotypes were identical.
