The southern little pipehorse (''Idiotropiscis australe'') 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 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

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are open

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

s, shallow seas, subtidal aquatic beds, and

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s. It camouflages amongst species of red algae.Dianne J. Bray & Vanessa J. Thompson, 2011, Southern Pygmy Pipehorse, Idiotropiscis australe, in Fishes of Australia, accessed 16 Oct 2014, http://www.fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/4424 It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

References

Idiotropiscis Vertebrates of Western Australia Marine fish of Southern Australia Fish described in 1921 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Edgar Ravenswood Waite Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Syngnathiformes-stub