Bargibants Pigmy Sea Horse

H. bargibanti
by Michael Topolovac

First we had the very cute Bargibants pigmy sea horse, this was first said to be found in deeper waters, generally said to be around 20-30m / 65-100' deep. This has now been proved to be wrong, all over Indonesia they can be seen in much shallower depths. The best places I have personally encountered for seeing pigmy sea horse is in Irian Jaya. Here I have seen pigmy sea horses in depths as shallow as 6m / 18' of water. Pigmy sea horses come in a huge variety of colours as shown in these images.

H. bargibanti
by Dianne Armstrong

The Bargibants sea horse is nearly always found on the Muricella sp. These sea fans can be found all over reefs in Indonesia, PNG, Philippines, Malaysia and Eastern Fields, still waiting to hear the first reported sighting in Thailand, sure they will be there somewhere!

They apparently feed upon the zooplankton trapped by the polyps of the sea fan. There actually size probably as large as 25mm in length. Their life span is as yet unknown though I have seen them on the same sea fan for over 10 months. This was witnessed with one individual on a particular dive site that was seen on the same fan for about 10 months, during the month or so it started to grow algae on it's body, became shaky and then it was gone ahhhhh!

As seen in the image alive they are often seen in numbers, they can be in numbers up to 30 or more on oen single sea fan. They are found at depths ranging from as shallow as 6m / 18' to depths beyond recreational diving depths.

Source:
http://www.diving4images.com/creature_features.html