The image is a very old specimen of a Southern Pygmy pipehorse, Acentronura australe. This and many other cryptic reef dwelling Syngnathid species are generally discovered by divers. New species of pygmy pipe-horse have recently been found even in suburban Sydney Harbour, NSW. By observing these species, which are usually localized, divers have made substantial contributions to our knowledge of their behaviour and reproduction.

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The Southern Pygmy pipehorse was rediscovered in South Australia by Steve Leske in 2007.  The above image was taken at night at Edithburg jetty.  Since the formation of the Inshore Fish Group this is the forth syngnathid species discovered or rediscovered. Others include the  Southern Gulf pipefish, the Willyama seahorse also at southern Yorke peninsula, and a new type of Stigmatopora pipefish.
 

Some things to consider when looking for pygmy pipe-horse.   Pygmy pipe-horse have numerous filaments over their bodies which match the course red filamentous algae on the rocks that they inhabit. These species behave like seahorses and have a prehensile tail. They grow to about 55 mm in length, which considering their camouflage, makes them difficult to see.

They have been noted to occur on semi-exposed open coast reefs in 6 to 30 meters of water. They can be solitary, in pairs or small groups. A good time to observe them is at night when they tend to move to the top of the weed. Some individuals have been observed at the same spot for up to eight months. They are best observed at night, and initially detected by divers sweeping a fine hand net through their habitat.

Quote from my article in the MLSSA journal. "The ability of marine naturalists to contribute to conservation through recording species of fish was particularly shown with reef and inshore/rubble species. Reef species which represent about 30% of species were hardly represented in collections and divers had an anecdotal knowledge which far exceeded official records. Even at the busy Clovelly Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs the well known underwater photographer Akos Lumnitzer found a new species of pygmy pipe-horse in 1997. There are also possibly several species of pygmy pipe-horse in South Australia. However, only one the Southern Pygmy Pipe-horse (Acentronura australe) is recorded from trawls from Cape Jarvis and St Vincent Gulf."

Below are two comments by Akos Lumnitzer concerning the recent discovery of a new species, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, of pygmy pipe-horse.

01-10-05

"in fact I initially photographed the little Pygmy Pipe-horse in April 1997 by sheer accident, at which time I approached Mark McGrouther (ichthyology collections manager) at the Australian Museum, because I could not for the life of me identify it. I just wanted to mention that since your site states I found it in 2003. Also before I learned to dive almost ten years ago, my friends have seen these little syngnathids in the southern Sydney region as far back as I think 1991, but they never thought of it as something new, just rare".

01-13-05

"It would be great to see the species from SA, however, I think they are more predominantly offshore. Our local pygmy pipe-horse is no easy find either. There is only ONE location in the whole of Sydney where we see them regularly during night dives, but sporadically at other locations. That shows the distribution of Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri is broad (my wife and I have seen them from Clovelly (Sydney's eastern suburbs) to as far south as outside Ulladulla Harbour approximately 300 km south from Sydney. A friend has observed two or three specimens about 20 km north from Clovelly, but I am unaware of sightings north of Sydney in general. I have a keen photographer keeping an eye out in the Port Stephens region, but to no avail thus far. They are found around coraline algae habitats, and what I call the pubic hair bryozoan colony, (sorry, I am not a scientist and don't know every name in the book, just that the colony looks like a bunch of curly pubic hair). They also prefer areas with a slight to moderate surge as they sway back and forth perhaps utilizing the movement of the water to cover a larger area to seek out small invertebrate prey"

Ákos Lumnitzer