The common seadragon or weedy seadragon (''Phyllopteryx taeniolatus'') is a
marine
Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean.
Marine or marines may refer to:
Ocean
* Maritime (disambiguation)
* Marine art
* Marine biology
* Marine debris
* Marine habitats
* Marine life
* Marine pollution
Military
* ...
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 ...
related to the
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 " ...
s. Adult common seadragons are a reddish colour, with yellow and purple markings; they have small leaf-like appendages that resemble kelp fronds providing
camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...
and a number of short spines for protection.
Males have narrower bodies and are darker than females.
Seadragons have a long dorsal fin along the back and small pectoral fins on either side of the neck, which provide balance. Common seadragons can reach in length.
The common seadragon is the marine emblem of the Australian state of
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
.
Range
The common seadragon 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 ...
to
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 ...
n waters of the Eastern
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
, Southern Ocean and the South Western
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. It can be found approximately between
Port Stephens (New South Wales)
Port Stephens, an open youthful tide-dominated drowned-valley estuary, is a large natural harbour of approximately located in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.
Port Stephens lies within the Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine P ...
and
Geraldton, Western Australia
Geraldton (Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth.
At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...
, as well as
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
.
Habitat
The common seadragon inhabits coastal waters down to at least deep. It is associated with rocky reefs, seaweed beds,
seagrass meadow
A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...
s and structures colonised by seaweed.
Biology
These fish are slow-moving and rely on their camouflage as protection against predation; they drift in the water and with the leaf-like appendages resemble the swaying seaweed of their habitat.
They lack a prehensile tail that enables similar species to clasp and anchor themselves.
Individuals are observed either on their own or in pairs; feeding on tiny
crustacean
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 ...
s and other
zooplankton
Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...
by sucking prey into their toothless mouths. As with seahorses, seadragon males are the sex that cares for the developing eggs. Females lay around 120 eggs onto the brood patch located on the underside of the males' tail. The eggs are fertilised and carried by the male for around a month before the hatchlings emerge.
The young are independent at birth, beginning to eat shortly after.
Common seadragons take about 28 months to reach sexual maturity, and may live for up to six years.
![Phyllopteryx](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Phyllopteryx.jpg)
Mating in captivity is relatively rare since researchers have yet to understand what biological or environmental factors trigger them to reproduce. The survival rate for young common seadragons is low in the wild, but it is about 60% in captivity.
The
Aquarium of the Pacific
The Aquarium of the Pacific (formerly the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific) is a public aquarium on a site on Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach, California, United States. It is situated across the water from the Long Beach Convention Center, Shore ...
in Long Beach, California and the
Tennessee Aquarium
The Tennessee Aquarium is a non-profit public aquarium located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. It opened in 1992 on the banks of the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga, with a major expansion added in 2005. The aquarium, which has ...
in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the US, and the
Melbourne Aquarium
Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is a Southern Ocean and Antarctic aquarium in central Melbourne, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Yarra River beside and under the Flinders Street Viaduct and the King Street Bridge. The attraction is a S ...
in Melbourne, Australia are among the few facilities in the world to have successfully bred common seadragons in captivity, though others occasionally report egg laying. In March 2012 the
Georgia Aquarium
Georgia Aquarium is a public aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It exhibits hundreds of species and thousands of animals across its seven major galleries, all of which reside in more than of water. It was the largest aquarium in the wor ...
in Atlanta, USA, announced a successful breeding event of common seadragons. As of July 2012, the
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium is a nonprofit public aquarium in Monterey, California. Known for its regional focus on the marine habitats of Monterey Bay, it was the first to exhibit a living kelp forest when it opened in October 1984. Its biologists ...
has also successfully bred and hatched out baby common seadragons on exhibit.
Threats
The common seadragon is classified as
Least Concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
(LC) on the
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
Red List 2017 . While the common seadragon is a desired species in the international aquarium trade, the volume of wild-caught individuals is small and therefore not currently a major threat. Instead, habitat loss and degradation due to human activities and pollution threaten common seadragons most.
The loss of suitable seagrass beds and loss of canopy seaweed from inshore rock reefs, coupled with natural history traits that make them poor dispersers, put the future of seadragon populations at risk. This species is not at present a victim of bycatch or a target of trade in
traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...
, two activities which are currently a threat to many related
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 " ...
and
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 ...
populations.
Conservation
![Weedy Sea Dragon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Weedy_Sea_Dragon.jpg)
It is illegal to take or export these species in most of the states within which they occur.
A database of seadragon sightings, known as 'Dragon Search' has been established with support from the
Marine Life Society of South Australia Inc., ('Dragon Search' arose as the logical progression of a similar project initiated by the MLSSA, which was the first community group or indeed organisation of any type to adopt the common seadragon's close relative, the leafy seadragon, as part of its logo), the Marine and Coastal Community Network (MCCN), the Threatened Species Network (TSN) and the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), which encourages divers to report sightings.
Monitoring of populations may provide indications of local water quality and seadragons could also become an important 'flagship' species for the often-overlooked richness of the unique flora and fauna of Australia's south coast.
Captive breeding programs are in place for the weedy seadragon, headed up by Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium. The dragon has been difficult to breed in captivity, though in 2015 research observing the creatures in the wild and trying to replicate the conditions in captivity had researchers making changes to the light, water temperature and water flow proving to be key.
In December 2015 the Melbourne aquarium hatched eggs and the aquarium's weedy seadragon population significantly increased. The aquarium reported in March 2016 that 45 fry were still going strong—a 95% survival rate.
Related species
The common seadragon is in the subfamily
Syngnathinae
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 ...
, which contains all pipefish. It is most closely related to the other member of its genus, the
ruby seadragon
The ruby seadragon (''Phyllopteryx dewysea'') is a marine fish in the family Syngnathidae, which also includes seahorses. It inhabits the coast of Western Australia. The species was first described in 2015, making it only the third known specie ...
(''Phyllopteryx dewysea''), and also the
leafy seadragon
The leafy seadragon (''Phycodurus eques'') or Glauert's seadragon, is the only member of the genus ''Phycodurus'' and is a marine fish in the family Syngnathidae, which includes seadragons, pipefish, and seahorses.
It is found along the sou ...
(''Phycodurus eques''). ''
Haliichthys taeniophorus
The ribboned pipefish (''Haliichthys taeniophorus''), ribboned pipehorse or ribboned seadragon, is a species of pipefish found along the coast of northern Australia (Shark Bay to Torres Strait) and New Guinea (both West New Guinea and Papua New G ...
'', sometimes referred to as the "ribboned seadragon" is not closely related (it does not form a true
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
clade with weedy and leafy seadragons).
[Wilson, N.G. & Rouse, G.W. (2010): Convergent camouflage and the non-monophyly of 'seadragons' (Syngnathidae:Teleostei): suggestions for a revised taxonomy of syngnathids. ''Zoologica Scripta, 39: 551-558.'']
The common seadragon was previously the only member of its genus until the description of the ruby seadragon in 2015.
Ongoing research
In the November 2006 issue of ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' magazine, marine biologist Greg Rouse is reported as investigating the DNA variation of the two seadragon species across their ranges.
References
External links
Common Seadragon video on Youtube*
Australian Museum Online- Leafy and Weedy Seadragons
Weedy Sea Dragon Monitoring Program in Botany BayLeafy Sea Dragon FestivalYoutube Male Weedy Seadragon with eggsYoutube Weedy SeadragonBBC Weedy seadragon videos, news and factsFishes of Australia : ''Phyllopteryx taeniolatus''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1120403.
common seadragon
The common seadragon or weedy seadragon (''Phyllopteryx taeniolatus'') is a marine fish related to the seahorses. Adult common seadragons are a reddish colour, with yellow and purple markings; they have small leaf-like appendages that resemble ...
Marine fish of Southern Australia
common seadragon
The common seadragon or weedy seadragon (''Phyllopteryx taeniolatus'') is a marine fish related to the seahorses. Adult common seadragons are a reddish colour, with yellow and purple markings; they have small leaf-like appendages that resemble ...
Articles containing video clips