Last updated on July 5th, 2024 at 06:56 pm
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Last updated on July 5th, 2024 at 06:56 pm
sciencefriday:
This tiny seahorse has mastered its domain.
As a tropical Pacific seahorse, Hippocampus bargibanti (also known as the Bargibant’s pygmy seahorse) generally dwells in the “Coral Triangle,” a marine region encompassing Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and the Solomon Islands, although in 2015, Richard Smith recorded the first sighting in waters around Japan, near Tokyo.
Bargibant’s pygmy seahorses are known for their clownish camouflage, which generally entails a full-body array of reddish-pink or orangey-yellow calcified bumps, called tubercles. Their marine attire exquisitely matches the knobby sea fans—members of a group called gorgonians—on which they depend for food and shelter. Specifically, H. bargibanti nestles amid the branches of Muricella gorgonians, according to Smith, the founder of Ocean Realm Images and a dive expedition leader. “It’s a real habitat specialist,” he says.
