Coleman's pygmy seahorse (''Hippocampus colemani'') is a species of fish of the family

Syngnathidae The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons (''Phycodurus'' and ''Phyllopteryx''). The name is derived from grc, σύν (), meaning "together", and (), meaning "jaw". The fused jaw is one of the tra ...

. It is found off of the coast of

Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland P ...

, Australia, although unconfirmed occurrences have been reported from

Milne Bay Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, south-eastern Papua New Guinea. More than long and over wide, Milne Bay is a sheltered deep-water harbor accessible via Ward Hunt Strait. It is surrounded by the heavily wooded Stirling Range to t ...

and the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

. It lives in coarse sand and ''

Zostera ''Zostera'' is a small genus of widely distributed seagrasses, commonly called marine eelgrass, or simply seagrass or eelgrass, and also known as seaweed by some fishermen and recreational boaters including yachtsmen. The genus ''Zostera'' con ...

'' and ''

Halophila ''Halophila'' is a genus of seagrasses in the Family (biology), family ''Hydrocharitaceae'', the tape-grasses. It was described as a genus in 1806. The number of its contained species, and its own placement in the order Alismatales, has evolved. ...

'' sea grasses at depths around .Eschmeyer, W.N. (ed.), 2004. Catalog of fishes. Updated database version of January 2004. Catalog databases as made available to FishBase in January 2004. It is expected to feed on small

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 ...

, similar to other

seahorse A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or " ...

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 ...

reproduction is also expected, with males brooding eggs in a pouch before giving birth to live young. Named after

Neville Coleman Neville Coleman OAM (1938 - 4 May 2012) was an Australian naturalist, underwater nature photographer, writer, publisher and educator. Coleman started scuba diving in 1963, exploring Sydney Harbour. Later he joined a scientific study group an ...

, an Australian diver and publisher of several popular books on diving and marine biology of the South Pacific area.

Identification

Individuals of this species are tiny, growing to a maximum recorded length of . They have small heads, short snouts, thick trunks, and low

coronets A coronet is a small crown consisting of ornaments fixed on a metal ring. A coronet differs from other kinds of crowns in that a coronet never has arches, and from a tiara in that a coronet completely encircles the head, while a tiara does ...

Algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

that are found on seagrass blades attach to their skins, acting as a form of camouflage. Colouration is generally pale whitish to yellowish, with white circular or elliptical markings outlined with narrow red lines on the trunk, dusky brown bands radiating from the eye, brownish-red appendages, and a slightly brownish tail with red markings.Dianne J. Bray & Vanessa J. Thompson, Hippocampus colemani in Fishes of Australia, accessed 24 Mar 2018, http://fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/4038

Identification

References

Further reading