GWR 2024 Look Inside - Flipbook - Page 2
AQUATIC LIFE
Explainer: Largest Octopus
Freshwater
On the Coast
Sunlight Zone
Twilight Zone
Into the Abyss…
Marine Megafauna
Round-Up
Domestic Animals
Largest seadragon
Seadragons are marine vertebrates related to
seahorses. Of the family’s three known species, the
weedy seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) reaches
the greatest size, growing up to 45 cm (1 ft 5 in)
from snout to tail tip. As the name implies, weedy
seadragons live among seaweed and coral in
coastal waters off southern Australia and Tasmania,
where its patterned body and leaf-like appendages
provide excellent camouflage. Although also called
common seadragons, this species’ numbers have
sadly been in decline in recent years, most likely
as a result of habitat destruction.
Very
few baby
seadragons
in
have been born
ce
captivity. One pla
lly
sfu
es
cc
su
at
th
bred them was
the…
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36
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40
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44
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48
100%
…Birch
Aquarium
at the Scripps
Institution
in
of Oceanography
th
wi
A,
US
,
California
two hatchlings
in 2020.
After
fertilization,
seadragon eggs are
carried around by the
male on their tails
until they hatch.
30
brood
A single und
o
r
a
takes
eks to
e
w
t
h
eig
nd can
a
e
incubat 0 baby
25
contain gons!
seadra
31
