Phycodurus eques

1. The Leafy Sea Dragon Phycoduruseques

2. The Leafy Sea Dragon is only found in Australia’s southern waters and nowhere else in the world.

3. Description • Leafy Sea Dragons belong to the family Syngnathidae, which also includes the seahorses, pipefish and pipe horses. • The Leafy Sea Dragon gets its name because of it’s huge similarity to actual leaves. The name comes from the leaf-like appendages on the body of the organism. • The organism, when in its habitat, looks just like a floating piece of seaweed. Their ability to blend in with their surroundings makes it hard for predators to find them. • Their camouflage is so great that their predators or their prey their prey do not recognize it. • The leafy sea dragon has a laterally flattened body and swims horizontally through the water. The balance to swim horizontally is maintained by two pectoral fins that end as leafy appendages.

4. Habitat • The leafy sea dragon is endemic to one area in the world, the southern coastline of Australia. • The leafy sea dragon lives in and among the kelp-covered rocky reefs along Australia’s shoreline. • The leafy sea dragon spends its entire life floating among the brown algae, which it so commonly resembles. • They live comfortably below the low tide, at 3-50 meters deep.

5. Diet • The leafy sea dragon has a long pipe-like snout with a small terminal mouth. • They have a pretty strict diet consisting of plankton, mysids and other small crustaceans. • Most of the organisms that leafy sea dragons eat live on the red algae in the kelp forests of the Sea Dragons habitat. • Leafy sea dragons do not have teeth, which is uncommon for organisms that eat crustaceans.

6. Human Impact • Humans have impacted the leafy sea dragon’s survival in both positive and negative ways. • The Australian government has declared the species near-threatened and enacted a law to protect them, known as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999. • Much of their endangerment is a result of human impact, such as pollution and poaching. Poachers use leafy sea dragons for alternative types of medicines. Fertilizer run-off and sewage have been destroying the sea grass of the leafy sea dragons habitats. Often divers will take them out of their natural habitat in order to attempt at raising them in home aquariums.

7. Threats to Survival • There are also some other threats that have had an effect on the survival of the leafy sea dragons. • Storm damage can harm the natural habitats in which the leafy sea dragon live. The storms can also wash them ashore because they do not have the ability to hold themselves in place. • The combination of an armored body, protective spines and little actual musculature make the sea dragon relatively undesirable as a food source but are still believed to be preyed upon by snakes, some shark species, and some pelagic fish.

8. Reproduction • Leafy sea dragon reproduction is quite different from other types of fish in several ways. • One way is that leafy sea dragon’s mate for life; they stay with the same mate during their lifespan. • The leafy sea dragon is also one of the fish species where the male is in charge of the eggs. The males have an external brood patch, on the underside of the tail, where the female deposits the unfertilized eggs. • The females can lay up to 250 eggs at a single time. • The leafy sea dragon is believed to only breed once a year. • The incubation period for leafy sea dragon eggs is eight weeks.

9. Lifespan and Size • The leafy sea dragon is born completely independent. • Right from birth it will eat the remains of the yolk sac. • They start off eating zooplankton, which helps to start its growth process, until it can begin a regular diet of plankton, mysids, and other small crustaceans. • Leafy sea dragons grow to a length of 18 inches. • Leafy sea dragons can travel at great speeds and lengths. They spend their whole lives in motion.