The worm pipefish (''Nerophis lumbriciformis'') is a species of

pipefish 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 ...

(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 ...

), found in the North-eastern

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

along the coasts of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

from the southern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Kattegat The Kattegat (; sv, Kattegatt ) is a sea area bounded by the Jutlandic peninsula in the west, the Danish Straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Skåne in Sweden ...

and

British Islands The British Islands is a term within the law of the United Kingdom which refers collectively to the following four polities: * the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (formerly the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland); ...

Río de Oro Río de Oro (Spanish for "Gold River"; , ''wādī-að-ðahab'', often transliterated as ''Oued Edhahab'') was, with Saguia el-Hamra, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969; it had been taken as ...

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...

. The fish has a length of up to 15 cm. It inhabits rocky coastal areas with macrophytes at depths to 30 m. The worm pipefish feeds primarily on

Harpacticoid Harpacticoida is an order of copepods, in the subphylum Crustacea. This order comprises 463 genera and about 3,000 species; its members are benthic copepods found throughout the world in the marine environment (most families) and in fresh ...

and cyclopoid

copepods Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have p ...

Like other pipefish, this species is sex role-reversed, with females courting males whom subsequently brood the young.Monteiro, N, Vieira, M. N. and Almada, V. C. 2002. The courtship behaviour of the pipefish ''Nerophis lumbriciformis'': reflections of an adaptation to intertidal life. ''Acta Ethologica'' 4(2): 109-111.

References

External links

''Nerophis lumbriciformis'' at FishBase
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2069414 worm pipefish Fish of the North Sea Marine fish of Europe Taxa named by Leonard Jenyns worm pipefish