The Walea pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus waleananus) is a pygmy seahorse living in Tomini bay in the Togian Islands, Sulawesi, Indonesia. It was first described in 2009 from only one specimen found in a coral reef there.
Walea seahorse lives on only one species of soft coral, the Nephthea soft coral. It is also called the Walea soft coral pygmy seahorse. It is as small as 2 rice grains lined up. It has a tail as long as its body, it is capable of holding stems of the coral, which is a big area for seahorse grasping range.
They can be yellow, pink, purple, orange, and many more colors. They can change their color to match the coral they live on, decreasing the risk of predation. Walea can even match the streaking on the Nephthea coral it lives in by having small white orbs on stalks “growing” on its body. The Walea pygmy seahorse has small white orbs “growing” on their bodies, to match the white marking on Nephthea coral. It has bumps on the body that look like the bumps on the Denise’s pygmy seahorse and the other pygmy seahorses.
Walea has large eyes on a “hill” located at the right and left side of the head, and the eyes sit on top. The skeletal system of the Walea pygmy seahorse is strange: it has both a exoskeleton and an endoskeleton, and the seahorse is the only fish that has that characteristic.
It can curl its tail to its head and pretend to be a floating piece of drift dirt, preventing predation. It has a short snout, covered in branches of fake dirt, making the snout stumpy.
During mating season, two pygmy seahorses grip tails and tumble about in the water, making the dance. The female gives the male her eggs into a special sac on the male’s belly. After two weeks, 1-34 babies are born, one at a time.
Walea can swim lengthy distances from one coral to another, reducing the chance of habitat loss. (Look out for my book about a Walea seahorse’s journey to a new habitat. It is coming soon!)
Save seahorses!
Walea seahorse is not listed yet on the animal conservation level list, due to lack of good quality data. Almost all of the seahorses are vulnerable because of pollution, global warming, and fishing (especially trawling for shrimp, which uses a sock-shaped net dragged along the seafloor destroying everything on its way). Bleaching of coral threatens and destroys seahorses habitats, leaving them with no place to live.
If they go extinct, too many amphipods and copepods will swim through the coral, and will cloud the water, and the coral reef will not get enough oxygen. Seaweed beds and coral reefs will not get enough sunlight and bleach even more.
Fortunately, there is iSeahorse, that encourages people to save seahorses together, and put seahorse observations online. You can also Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle all the time, to reduce the amount of plastic and other garbage in the oceans.
If you know a lot about seahorses, send seahorse info to friends and other people you know. Encourage friends and other people to save seahorses. Take out the garbage out of parks and nature centers and reserves. Tell shrimp fishers to not trawl as much. Tell people you know that polluting is horrible to sea life and to recycle plastic.
To help more, save the pygmy seahorses, the most endangered seahorses on the planet. Work more on saving the Walea pygmy seahorse, the rarest seahorse in the sea. Stop everything that hurts all sea creatures, anywhere, everywhere. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!!
Check out my new fiction book about a Walea seahorse!
Thanks! Very interesting article. And the seahorses are so cute! It’s a pity if they don’t survive.