[Animals] Sea dragon dad glues his brood to his tail for safekeeping, stunning image shows

[FRIDAY THE 13]

 

Sea dragon dads and octopus moms are the extreme marine parents we need, winning photos show.

A gorgeous new image shows a common sea dragon dad drifting through a seagrass meadow with his jewel-like egg clutch in tow. 

The image took the top spot in the Compact Behavior category of the Underwater Photography Guide's 2022 Ocean Art(opens in new tab) contest.

Common sea dragons (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) typically live at depths of around 13 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters), though they can dive down to 160 feet (50 m), according to the Georgia Aquarium(opens in new tab). They usually begin brooding in late July or early August. 

The eggs start out a beautiful shade of deep magenta, which fades to brown as the baby dragons develop. Sometimes green or brown algae grows along the dad's tail, helping provide further camouflage. "After a few weeks, you start to see eye spots inside each [egg]", Greg Rouse(opens in new tab), a marine biologist at the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography who wasn't involved with the photo contest, told Live Science. Rouse said that the eggs pictured here are "a pretty fresh brood."

Unlike most vertebrates, male sea dragon parents are the ones who invest time and energy into caring for unhatched eggs. Closely related groups, including seahorses and pipefishes, also display this unusual brooding strategy. However, seahorses and some pipefish sport a specialized kangaroo-like pouch to hold their eggs, whereas sea dragons simply glue their eggs to the underside of their tails. A clutch of sea dragon eggs typically numbers somewhere between 100 and 180, depending on the size of the female.

Related: Best wildlife photography cameras 2023

All sea dragons are endemic to the waters of coastal Australia. They're notoriously tricky to breed in captivity: Of the three species of sea dragon, only the common (or weedy) dragon has been successfully captive-bred, and not in large enough numbers to sustain a sizable po[CENSORED]tion. "The sea dragons people see in the aquarium are mostly being caught in the wild," Rouse said. To help monitor how this impacts sea dragon numbers, Rouse co-founded the citizen science project Seadragon Search(opens in new tab), in which diving enthusiasts can record their encounters with these fish.

 

https://www.livescience.com/sea-dragon-dad-glues-his-brood-to-his-tail-for-safekeeping-stunning-image-shows