''Halicampus dunckeri'' or also commonly known as the Duncker's pipefish or ridgenose pipefish is a species of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
in the family
Syngnathidae.
Description
The Duncker's pipefish is a small sized fish that can reach a maximum length of 15 cm.
[Dawson, C.E., 1986. Syngnathidae. p. 445-458. In M.M. Smith and P.C. Heemstra (eds.) Smiths' sea fishes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.] It has a thin and elongate body with reduced fins which are difficult to observe. The body color is highly variable from one individual to another ranging from creamy white to dark brown through redish to yellowish.
The dorsal part of the body is full of small whitish skin growths as well as irregular pale bars.
Its head is rather small with large eyes, the snout is short with a characteristic whitish part at its tip.
Distribution
The ridgenose pipefish is widespread throughout the tropical and subtropical waters of the
Indo-West Pacific from the eastern coast of Africa, Red Sea included, until
Salomon Islands and from South Japan to the
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...
.
[
The ridgenose pipefish is found close to the bottom between the surface and 25 meters deep.][Allen, G.R. and M.V. Erdmann, 2012. Reef fishes of the East Indies. Perth, Australia: University of Hawai'i Press, Volumes I-III. Tropical Reef Research.]
It prefers areas such as reef, sandy bottom or coral rubble with algae or debris in which it can easily hide.
Biology
Like many of their congeners belonging to the family of Pipefishes
Pipefishes or pipe-fishes (Syngnathinae) are a subfamily of small fishes, which, together with the seahorses and seadragons (''Phycodurus'' and ''Phyllopteryx''), form the family Syngnathidae.
Description
Pipefish look like straight-bodied seah ...
, the Duncker's pipefish has a benthic lifestyle and is ovoviviparous
Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...
.[Breder, C.M. and D.E. Rosen, 1966. Modes of reproduction in fishes. T.F.H. Publications, Neptune City, New Jersey. 941 p.]
Its reproduction occurs during a courtship where the female will transfer her eggs in the ventral surface of the male between skin folds forming a kind of protective pouch in which he will fertilize them and protect them during the incubation period.crustaceans
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
and other invertebrates which it aspires through its tubular snout.
Etymlogy
The fish is named in honor of ichthyologist Georg Duncker (1870-1953), of the Zoological Museum Hamburg, who revised the pipefish family in 1915.
References
External links
*http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=218013
*http://www.fishbase.org/summary/5974
*http://www.eol.org/pages/204530/details
*http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=644994
dunckeri
Taxa named by Paul Chabanaud
Fish described in 1929
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