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Hippocampus bargibanti, also known as Bargibant's seahorse or the pygmy seahorse, is a seahorse of the family Syngnathidae found in the central Indo-Pacific area. [3]This pygmy seahorse is tiny—usually less than 2 centimetres (0.79 in) in size—and lives exclusively on gorgonian sea-fans, as its coloration and physical features expertly mimic the coral for camouflage. [4]
The pygmy seahorse is both tiny and well camouflaged.It is very difficult to spot amongst the sea grasses, soft corals, or gorgonians (sea fans) that it inhabits. Other distinctive pygmy seahorse characteristics include a fleshy head and body, a very short snout, and a long, prehensile tail.
Pygmy seahorses have a single gill opening on the back of the head (instead of two on the sides as in normal seahorses), and the males brood their young inside their trunk, instead of in a pouch on the tail. [11] A molecular phylogeny confirms that the pygmy seahorses are a monophyletic sister lineage of all other seahorses. [10]
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Forreau suspected that pygmy seahorses’ gorgonian coral colonies might yield more of the worms, she told CNN. In 2023, during an unrelated survey in southern Sukumo Bay in Kochi, Japan, she ...
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In 2013, after completing his PhD on the biology of the Bargibant's and Denise's pygmy seahorses, Richard Smith went to a fish biology conference in Okinawa in 2013, after which he photographed the Japanese pygmy seahorse on several dives off of Hachijo-jima, one of the Izu Islands about 180 miles from Tokyo. There he found about a dozen specimens.
Denise's pygmy seahorse uses adaptive camouflage, changing its color to match that of the surrounding gorgonians. [4] It feeds on small crustaceans and other zooplankton. [6] An individual will stay on a single coral for the duration of its entire life. The species is ovoviviparous, and it is the male who broods the eggs in its ventral brood pouch.