Animals of the Delaware Bay: Northern Pipefish

We were swimming in the bay. I grabbed a twig. Then, it was moving!!!!

It looked like………………………………………………….. It had ridges on its back like a crocodile. Its belly was shimmering rainbow. Its eyes were orange. It had a very long snout.

At first, I thought it was a twig fish, but they only live in the Amazon river in South America. Then, I thought it was a crocodile fish, but they have flat snouts. Then, I thought it was a needle fish, but their snout is longer and sharper, with mouth running along the whole length of the jaw. Hmmmm….

But then, eventually we identified it……

…It was a baby Northern Pipefish, also called the common pipefish. It is closely related to seahorses (it sure looks like one). They can reach one foot in length (30cm)! It lives around the Atlantic coast between Canada and Florida. They eat mostly tiny crustaceans. They do not have many predators because they can camouflage as blades of seaweed. See in the video how it is doing that: it is swaying a little bit like seaweed in a current.

Its tail also seemed to be cut off at the end. It was doing OK though.