Dear All,
Can someone help me in the ID of a Seahorse in the attached pictures. The seahorse was collected in a seagrass bed, 3 m depth from Kuwait, Arabian Gulf.
Best Regards,
M. Nithyanandan
This could be the Drab seahorse Hippocampus fuscus Rüppell 1838
(other species in the region: H. jayakari is more spiny; H. borboniensis has one less dorsal-fin ray and slightly fewer tail rings; H. suezensis has more dorsal-fin rays and more tail rings).
The genus Hippocampus in the Indian Ocean is in need of revision, so it is difficult to know the distribution ranges of the species. The classification used above follows Kuiter 2009:
Kuiter, R. H. 2009: Seahorses and their relatives. Aquatic Photographics, Seaford, Australia: 1-333.
Under the current taxonomy this specimen would be considered H. fuscus, which is a member of the H. kuda species complex. Although there are slight morphological differences between the two, the genetic data to date suggest that this may actually be clinal variation and that they are actually the same species. This work (in preparation) indicates that H. fuscus should be synonymized with H. kuda.
It would be excellent if you could upload this observation to iSeahorse.org - a citizen science program by Project Seahorse that aims to have such occurrences online for research purposes.
www.iseahorse.org
Many Thanks! Riley for the ID. i will upload the pictures in iSeahorse.
Best Regards,
M. Nithyanandan
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Modeling