What are pipefishes?
Pipefishes are true fish, although they don’t appear very fish-like! Pipefishes belong to Family Syngnathidae which includes seahorses. Features: Bodies long, cylindrical and rather stiff being enclosed in an armour of bony rings just under the skin. They also have an internal skeleton just like other fish. Most retain a dorsal fin and pectoral fins and some have a fan-like tail fin. Pipefishes lack scales. Gill openings are reduced to a pore. Some have prehensile tails. Pipefishes are adapted for sheltered waters well vegetated with seagrass or seaweed. With reduced fins and rather inflexible bodies, pipefishes cannot swim quickly. Instead, they rely on camouflage to blend in with the vegetation. Pipefishes come in a wide variety of colours and patterns. What do they eat? Pipefishes feed on tiny creatures. To suck these up, they use their long tube-like snouts tipped with a small toothless mouth. Pipefish babies: Like the seahorse, the male pipefish also carries the eggs. In some spec
