Found only along the temperate reefs of southern Australia, this little beauty is a weedy seadragon (aka the common seadragon).
Credit: Klaus Stiefel/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Gorgeous isn’t it! Unsurprisingly, they get their name from their leafy-life appendages. These critters are quite partial to small crustaceans. Some good news - they are currently listed on the IUCN Red List as Least Concern!
Let’s learn a little more about our weedy seadragon friends.
1: Looks sorta like a seahorse…isn’t a seahorse
They are closely related though. Weedy seadragons and seahorses are in the same family—the Syngnathidae. When it comes to breeding, all Syngnathidae males carry fertilised eggs. While male seahorses have pouches to carry the eggs, weedy seadragon males keep the eggs fixed on the underside of their tails for around eight weeks.
Curious about how they breed? Check out this courtship video
2: They really quite like kelp
If you want to spot a weedy seadragon, your best bet is to head away from the rocks into the kelp. According to this open access study, the denser the kelp, the better.
3: They’re not just one big population
They may be confined to southern Australia, but that doesn’t mean they’re one homogeneous group. Genetic and morphological analysis has revealed that there are four distinct populations in southeast Australia alone.