Scientific Illustration

rhamphotheca:

Ancient Pygmy Pipehorse Species Found

by Helen Scales

Fossils of a new species of pygmy pipehorse—a relative of the seahorse—have been discovered in Slovenia. Scientists discovered the 1-in-long (2.5-cm-long) species—dubbed Hippotropiscis frenki—in a fossil-rich region called the Tunjice Hills, where the team also found the oldest known seahorse fossils in 2009.

Pygmy pipehorses are thought to be an evolutionary link between seahorses and their close relatives, including pipefish and seadragons. The animals share so many features that at first study leader Jure Žalohar and colleagues thought the newfound fossils belonged to another type of ancient seahorse. Modern pygmy pipehorses also look and behave a lot like seahorses—pygmy pipehorse males, for instance, care for their fertilized eggs in a special pouch.

“The only major difference is that [pygmy pipehorses] do not swim upright,” Žalohar, a geologist at the University of Ljubljana, said by email…

(read more: National Geo)       (images: Jure Žalohar)

ofpaperandponies:

biomedicalephemera:

I understand the reptiles here, but I can’t figure out the Acus marina. It looks like an elongated seahorse, but from all the other literature that I’ve looked at, no one actually knows what it is, besides “not an insect”. This was a book that used a non-binomial naming system, and as such is very difficult to figure out the equivalent species as classified by other authors.

In response to the anon question I got asked about this old post, “Acus marina” is a pipefish. “Acus marina” literally translates to “Sea-needle” or needle-fish. Both the pipefish and seahorses were once classified in the broad group that included reptiles and amphibians.

(via biomedicalephemera)

n22_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Seahorse and Pipefish

Naturgeschichte in Bildern : mit erläuterndem Text / Von Professor Dr. Strack. Lief. 4. (Heft 33-56). Fische.
Düsseldorf :Arnz & Co.,[1819-1826]
biodiversitylibrary.org/item/37422

n260_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Pipefish

Iacobi Theodori Klein Historiæ piscium naturalis
Gedani [i.e. Gdansk] :Litteris Schreiberianis,1740-49.
biodiversitylibrary.org/item/30072