Greater Pipefish

• It is the male that becomes pregnant: the female deposits the eggs in a brood pouch on the male's belly, and he fertilises them, nourishes them and gives birth weeks later.
• Its snout works like a pipette: it opens its mouth in under six milliseconds and draws in the prey along with the water.
• It lacks pelvic fins and a functional tail fin, and swims solely by undulating its dorsal fin.
• As in seahorses, pregnancy belongs to the male: the female deposits her eggs in a brood pouch under the male's tail, and he carries them until they hatch.
• Several females may deposit partial clutches in the same male's pouch, so a single brood can have several mothers.
• It breeds about three times a year.
• Its snout is a long tube ending in a tiny mouth, with which it sucks up small crustaceans, above all amphipods.
• It is told apart from the species known in Spanish as the aguja mular by having pectoral and anal fins, which that species lacks, and by an elongated bump on top of the head, behind the eye.
• Its genome was sequenced in 2023 as part of the Darwin Tree of Life project.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat & environment

Seagrass meadows and algal bottoms down to 100 m

Sexual maturity

Size at first maturity 16.3 cm (range 7-25.6)

Gestation / incubation

4-5 weeks of incubation in the male's pouch

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngnathus_acus