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Just when we thought we’d discovered every wild and wondrous creature that occupies Australian waters, another unique specimen drifts out of the seagrass and onto our radar. Despite its moniker, the leafy seadragon (Phycodurus eques) is no moat-dwelling flame thrower. In fact, it’s not a dragon at all, or even a reptile, but a uniquely beautiful species of fish with frond-like appendages that extend from rings of bony armor encircling its body.
The leafy seadragon’s fishy foliage serves as camouflage that helps the marine animal hide from both predators and prey in the reefs of its southwestern coastal habitat. While the seadragon may have a delicate appearance, don’t let those frills fool you. The voracious carnivore is a crustacean ambush artist, using the suction power of its tubular snout to capture vast quantities of tiny mysid shrimp.
The fish species most likely to be mistaken for underwater escarole has another highly distinctive characteristic: male leafy seadragons pitch in with pregnancy in a big way—they carry and brood eggs. Female seadragons transfer up to 250 eggs to their mate for eight weeks of safe-keeping until they hatch. Some scientists believe that females pass off eggs to papa to hide soon-to-be seadragons from predators—crafty!
Until recently, there were only two known species of seadragons, the leafy and the common (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus). In 2015, for the first time in 150 years, a new seadragon was discovered in waters off the coast of Western Australia, Phyllopteryx dewysea, a.k.a. the Ruby Seadragon. The brilliantly colored, crimson fish is not quite as elegant as its leafy cousin, but it’s splendid just the same.
Researchers think that we’ve only identified 1.6 million species out of an estimated 8.7 million globally. Now that we’re plus one fancy red seadragon, there are 7,099,999 species to go, give or take. That’s a lot of living things to factor into the healthy functioning of our planet. We’d better get busy!
If you’d like to read a lyrical ode to one of the world’s most ornate ocean dwellers, you can get free access to Miho Nonaka’s poem The Leafy Seadragon, through JSTOR.
And if you want to learn more about some of Australia’s most extraordinary animals, we invite you to explore WW’s wildlife down under.
