Few days ago I shared with you guys the super cute Pygmy marmoset, the world's smallest monkey.
Today I have another pygmy, although this one is much, much cuter if you ask me.
Something from the deep blue! Well, not so deep but more on that later
Meet the Pygmy Seahorse:
Lol, looks like a cute coronavirus 馃槅
Scientifically described as Hippocampus bargibanti, this little fella is found in the coastal waters of the Indo-West Pacific Ocean at depths ranging from 16 to 40 meters. That's about 50 to 130 feet for the metrically challenged!
As their common name indicates, they are super small, ranging from 1.5 to 2.7 cm, or 0.5 to 1.1 inches.
But what about their super cute looks?
It's actually a form of camouflage. And a very good one that is! So good that it was discovered by pure chance in the late 1960s:
The pygmy seahorse is well camouflaged and extremely difficult to spot amongst the gorgonian coral it inhabits. So effective is this camouflage that the species wasn't actually discovered until its host gorgonian was being examined in a laboratory. In 1969, a New Caledonian scientist, Georges Bargibant, was collecting specimens of Muricella gorgonians for the Noum茅a museum and whilst one of these was on his dissection table he happened to notice a pair of tiny seahorses. The next year they were officially named by Whitley as "Bargibant's pygmy seahorse source
Here's a video from Natgeo
And another quicky one
As a sidenote, it's close relative, Hippocampus satomiae is worth a note too. This species from the same genus holds the record for being the smallest known seahorse in the world with an average length of just 13.8 millimetres (0.54 in) and an approximate height of 11.5 millimetres (0.45 in).
This one isn't so cute though
Ok I think that's enough cuteness overload for today! As always, feel free to visit wikipedia if you want to learn more about this beautiful creature.
See you soon with more strange animals <3
