For being such an iconic and extraordinary looking fish, our knowledge about seadragon life history is surprisingly limited. This is largely a result of their cryptic nature. You can imagine trying to undertake something as simple as trying to do a census to understand how many dragons there are in a given area.




Weedy seadragon in weeds (Photo: Jeremy Brodt)

Just spotting a cryptic species like a seadragon is a challange (just look at the photos above) let alone making sure that you get an accurate count of all the animals living in a given area.

Several years ago there was a program called Dragon Search (which we highlighted on one our graphic panels adjacent to our exhibit at the aquarium) that employed the help of local divers and beach goers to report seadragon sightings. While this wasn't a "scientific" assessment it did provide lots of valuable information about what habitats, depths, and locations sea dragons were being found in and what times of the year eggs were being seen and where/when juveniles were being spotted.

After this program ended there was still interest about reporting sea dragon sightings and the program still continues under Reef Watch's Feral or In Peril program. All the information gathered from Dragon Search has now been compiled and can be accessed through the Reef Watch website.
If you're interested in learning more I urge you to check out their website for more information.

Cheers,
Jeremy

I saw my first weedy seadragon today! Not even 10 minutes into the dive I saw my first dragon! I saw about 15-20 dragons total throughout my dive. It was quite a spectacular thing to witness. They are such beautiful fish and are quite graceful.


(Photo: Jeremy Brodt)

One of the primary reasons that I came to Australia when I did was because it is spring here which means that its sea dragon breeding season. In fact, many of the seadragons I saw were males carrying eggs on their tail.

Like other syngnathids (seahorses, pipefish, & sea dragons) the male actually takes care of the eggs. With seahorses, the eggs are deposited by the female in the males brood pouch. With seadragons the female deposits the eggs on the males tail which becomes thick and spongy to receive the eggs.

Here are some other neat fish that I saw during my dive:


(Photo: Jeremy Brodt)

Tomorrow's dive won't likely yield many seadragons, but we may get so see some seahorses so stay tuned.

Cheers,
Jeremy

In just under one week I will be heading "down under" to the Southern coast of Australia to do some diving to observe weedy and leafy seadragons in the wild. These remarkable fish are related to sea horses and are endemic to the temperate waters of the southern coast of Australia.
Here's a video I took inside the exhibit:


While in Australia I will spend a week diving with a local seadragon expert near Melbourne to see weedy sea dragons, then travel to Tasmania to visit an aquarium called Seahorse World, and finally I will travel to Adelaide, South Australia to meet with the conservation organization Reef Watch as well as do some diving to see leafy sea dragons. Right now I am solidifying my plans and testing out some new gear to bring along.

Cheers,
Jeremy