Specieswatch: Britain's seagrass-loving pipefish

Resembling stretched-out seahorses, pipefish live in a habitat threatened and degraded by trawlingThere are six varieties of pipefish living in British waters, the most noticeable of them being the largest, the greater pipefish, Syngnathus acus. For the amateur, the types are fairly difficult to distinguish from one another, with all species being long, thin and bony, and the juveniles of one species looking like the adults of another. They resemble stretched-out seahorses, to which they are related.They are of no commercial value and therefore little studied and largely ignored but they occur all round Britain and Ireland. They are poor swimmers and after storms hundreds can be washed up and stranded at high tide. Adults can reach 45cm (18in) but are generally 35cm long. Continue reading...