A mottled pipefish lying among rubble in very shallow water, fourteen centimeters (5.5 in), and one that almost nobody notices because it is doing nothing at all.
Most small fish hide by getting into something. This one hides by being a stick lying on the bottom: it rests on the rubble rather than hovering above it, has irregular pale saddles that break the line of the body, and carries small flaps of skin that blur its outline further. Movement is what gives an animal away, and this one has largely given it up.
That is also why the family is so poorly recorded. A fish that does not move, lives in shallow rubble and is the color of the bottom is systematically under-reported - the pipefishes of any coast are always more numerous than the records suggest.
The male carries the eggs, glued to a strip on the underside of his tail with no pouch over them - the simpler arrangement in the family, and the one closer to how the whole system probably began.
The genus. Halicampus Kaup 1856 - kampos (mythological sea monster). ETYFish
The species. Halicampus mataafae (Jordan & Seale 1906) - Honours Mata’afa Iosefo. ETYFish
- mottled brown and cream body with irregular pale saddles
- short snout, small skin flaps along the body
- lies among rubble rather than swimming above it
- length up to 14 cm
