How to find amazing marine life Ep 4 : the Ghost Pipefish challenge

‪@UnderseaProductions‬
This is Episode 4 of the marine life finding challenge "Find the Critter". Perfect training for divers, dive guides and underwater image makers, be it photography or videography, the first step is finding the critter. The more cryptic they are the better you need to be. Take on the challenge of finding these masters of camouflage - the ghost pipefish.
Script : G’day folks and welcome to episode 4 of the find the critter series where today, we do battle with the enigmatic ghost pipefish from the family Solenostomidae. Chances are if you’re not into muck diving you’ve probably never heard of it, and you might have never even heard of these little suckers let alone seen one. Among dive guides and fish geeks like myself all throughout the Indo Pacific, they are one of the most exciting underwater critters to find to shoot or show off to others. So after a brief introduction, I’ll show you how to find your own through 10 levels of difficulty in the find the critter challenge.
There are fewer than 10 species of this family and they are all very similar in body shape and behaviour so its worth quickly running through the most common species, and learn what sort of habitats you’re most likely to find them. Places with black corals, hydroids and crinoids are are great for the ornate ghost pipefish, if you find yourself in halimeda green algae beds which colour-wise are made up of the living green parts, and white dead skeleton of the algae, look for the halimeda ghost pipefish perfectly suited to both options. On sea grassy areas look out for the Longtail ghost pipefish and pretty much everywhere tropical, you can find the Robust ghost pipefish. If you find yourself in a patch of coral rubble which is common on every reef, areas with red algae and often hydroids, you can find my personal favourite the hairy snout ghost pipefish, they come in red and pink most often. These aren’t hard and fast rules and often the easiest critters to find are the ones in the wrong place or wearing the wrong colours.
The family name roughly translates to tube mouth which they use to suck up tiny crustaceans like these mysids a type of small shrimp - this little fella is rushing into the strike zone. Was that too fast? Lets try another one. Unfortunately this footage was shot at only 25 frames per second, so we can’t see much detail, but we can measure the time from the moment the shrimp is noticed coming into range here, forward one 1/25 of a second at a time, we can see that from first making a move, it takes about 18frames or 18/25ths of a second to get into position, and then 1/25th of a second to tilt the head and suck in the prey. Too fast even for all the other mysids to even flinch. Bob was there, then not there, nobody even noticed.
I’ve also witnessed a GP eating small fish. I saw this female diving out of shot but only realised after I’d missed the shot that she was eating a small wrasse. It was a juvenile two pot wrasse just like this one that found itself hiding under a flamboyant cuttlefish! When it leaves safety and enters the cuttlefish’s strike zone, the cuttlefish gets flamboyant, and the lucky wrasse got away on that accasion, but not this time, unfortunately I missed the eating shot but you can see the tiny victim in the mouth here, and one more suck and it’s gone up into the stomach- ghost pipefish have no teeth so they suck their prey down whole.
The group aren’t well studied because they spend most of their lives floating around in the plankton, its only when they settle on the bottom still mostly transparent like this youngster that we are likely to come across them. They are related to true pipefish and sea horses and share the tube mouth and bony body armour but they opposite in their reproductive habits. Where male seahorses and pipefish carry the eggs until they develop, in ghost pipefish, it is the females who carry the eggs in a pouch created by holding their large pelvic fins together. Water is pumped over the eggs to keep them aerated and as they develop, tiny eyes become visible. The males are much skinnier and lack that pouch which makes it easy to tell who’s who. They are often found in pairs and reportedly mate for life, but that’s not long, because they apparently only reproduce once in their short lives.
And now you know what you’re looking for, we’ll get into the challenge. Each level will begin with 10 seconds to spot them as you might come across them on a dive, followed by closer and more obvious shots.
Take on the challenge if you want a better chance of spotting the next ghost pipefish you swim past. So good luck and happy critter spotting!

[@KayJensen-oj9zm]

Like these little guys. Doubt I'd see them in the wild though.

[@joshjensen6842]

They take some finding alright.

[@allyunderwater]

Loving this series Josh 👍

[@UnderseaProductions]

Thanks Al, that's high praise indeed!