A PYGMY seahorse reportedly the size of a grain of rice has been discovered by a resident of the small town in the waters off Sodwana Bay.
Heralded as the first of its kind in South Africa, the species is the first pygmy seahorse discovered in the Indian Ocean, living 5 000 miles away from other such species.
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Of the seven other pygmy seahorse species, six are resident in the Coral Triangle in the western Pacific Ocean, while one species is found in Japan.
‘It’s like finding a kangaroo in Norway,’ said Richard Smith, a marine biologist based in the United Kingdom and co-author of a new study on the species, known as the African or Sodwana Bay pygmy seahorse.
First seen by Sodwana Bay dive instructor Savannah Nalu Olivier in 2017, researchers have named the new seahorse Hippocampus nalu.
Smith’s research revealed that, like other pygmy seahorses, the Sodwana species has two wing-like structures on its back, rather than one, as in larger seahorses.
These ‘wings’ serve an unknown purpose for seahorses.
Also, as with other pygmy seahorses, this species has only one gill slit on its upper back, instead of two below each side of the head, like larger seahorses.
Unlike other pygmy seahorses, however, the local species was found living in turf-like algae, amid boulders and sand.
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