Syngnathidae

The seahorse is a wondrous beast. The male incubates the eggs in a pouch, leaving the female time to relax before producing the next batch of eggs. Wonderfully efficient way of raising a family, don't you think? Seahorse as feminist icon.



This little fellow is a harlequin ghost pipefish. Very hard to see, let alone photo graph. Wish I had. This was taken by a guy named Mike in Puerto Galera. I wasn't on this dive, but he shared his photos.

Which is a good thing, because he prevented me from getting close enough to this blond seahorse to get a good picture. The rather 'blue' one here is mine, taken from quite far away. I had to blow up and crop the image or you would never have seen the wee beastie. The clear, close one at the bottom is Mike's. See the difference? Of course, his was also taken with a spiffy external underwater flash. Santa, are you listening?