Members of this charming ‘fused jaw’ family – which includes pipefishes, sea horses and sea dragons, first appeared about 50 million years ago. These early pipefish like creatures spent the next 25 million years evolving into roughly the form we today recognize as the little charmer whose head echoes that of a miniature horse.
Among this species’ distinctions, it is the males who bear the work of pregnancy. A delicate pax de deux recedes mating. After receiving the eggs from the female, the gentlemen fertilizes and nurtures these eggs until birth. Depending on the species, this can be from 50 to as many as 1500 eggs and last up to several weeks. As these fully formed but tiny creatures spend their first weeks floating along the plankton layer, only about one in a thousand survive to adulthood. Sea horses are at risk of extinction due to human over-harvesting for dried souvenirs or for Chinese treatments that are of dubious medicinal value.
Leafy Sea Dragons
Along Australia’s wild, rocky southern coastline, long wooden jetties signal the occasional human settlement. Over these timbers – many in place since the early 1800’s – one conjures the human stories..the patter of generations of European immigrants’ weary feet stepping onto a new land…and industrial scale heaving of seal and whale blubber exchanged for wheat or wool harvested from fledgling colonies. For these small fishing and farming towns, piers ushered the rest of civilization and sustenance borne by and from the sea.
Roads that eventually linked such coastal outposts absorbed the human passage. Yet as quiet descended upon the jetties, new chapters began – of stories not upon these aging timbers, but beneath them. As with many human leave-behinds, these dilapidating jetties now harbor new life as the sea and its creatures – uniquely evolved to these coasts – have returned to reclaim their place. Red and blue eyed crabs skitter about here, scavenging amongst human debris. Striped cowfish pick morsels from opened shells. Beneath a sponge-encrusted fallen pillar, a freckled warty prowfish sets its ambush.
Yet its the slow, searching swim through nearby thickets of sea grasses that, if lucky, happens upon the crown jewel of these old jetties: the enchanting leafy sea dragon. Its first reveal through the thicket conjures its mythical namesake. but this small dragon is a far more delicate creature. It hovers or swims slowly – almost imperceptibly – amongst the thicket. Through its long ‘fused jaw’ it dines on tiny sea lice, mysid shrimp or fish fry – those soft billows hint of a dragon’s home base.
We know little of how sea dragons have come to grace the planet. Their synganthidae family apparently descended from perch, sticklebacks, bass and cyclids about 45 million years ago. Dragons may have branched from their common ancestor with sea horses perhaps 15 million years later. They since have specialized to their southern Australian range – probably co-evolving their exuberance of tassels just as kelp and sea grasses came to dominate their territories.
Like sea horses, male sea dragon take on what are traditionally female duties. After a slow synchronized duet with his bride, the male accepts about 200 eggs from her. He softly cradles them beneath his tail, harboring them just over a month. Once hatched, the little dragons swim off on their own. Only a small handful, if any, will survive to adulthood. Because their tasseled tails aren’t prehensile like those of sea horses, dragons cannot grasp and hold fast in turbulence. Thus they often succumb to violent storms that sweep them ashore.
Engaging a leafy in its natural home is an experience rare and poignant. Rare, for one finds leafy sea dragons in only a few isolated, chilly pockets on the planet. Poignant, for its vulnerability – to pollution and development encroaching upon hits habitat; and, to collectors for whom it generates profit but rarely survives the ordeal. And most poignant of all, for this enchanting creature is near-endangered for extinction. Yet, so much about its life and place upon the planet is yet to be learned.