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Bargibanti Pygmy Seahorse
Hippocampus bargibanti
11.3461, 124.107
Field Notes
Description:
This tiny Seahorses, hence the term, Pygmy are very small, growing up to maximum of 2 cm, but most of the time, you see them around 1 cm in size as their tails are curled up on the branches of their host sea fan. They are well camouflaged, taking in the colour of their host, usually purple/pink or yellow/orange with tubercles that looks exactly like the polyps of the sea fan.
Habitat:
A specific Gorgonian Seafan - Muricella spp gorgonians
Notes:
The pygmy seahorse is well camouflaged, being extremely difficult to spot amongst the gorgonian coral it inhabits. So effective is this camouflage that the species wasn’t actually discovered until its host gorgonian was being examined in a laboratory. In 1969 a New Caledonian scientist, Georges Bargibant, was collecting specimens of Muricella spp gorgonians for the Nouméa museum and whilst one of these was on his dissection table he happened to notice a pair of tiny seahorses.
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