A sharply spined seahorse of seagrass and rubble, told by the dark bars on its snout.
To about 15 cm, and among the spiniest of the medium-sized seahorses: sharp spines on the trunk and tail rings, a spine above the eye, a nose spine and a double cheek spine. Colour runs white, yellow, greenish-grey or light brown, often with reddish-brown lines and spots, and is not diagnostic. The feature that settles it is the snout, which carries alternating dark and pale bars along its length — the reason for the name zebra-snout seahorse. Hippocampus histrix, the other spiny animal it is confused with, has a longer snout without the barring and longer spines that are usually dark-tipped. H. kuda is smooth-bodied and rounded and should not be a problem.
Shallow water: seagrass, rubble, algae, mangrove edges and muddy estuarine ground, mostly under 10 m. It holds with the tail to seagrass blades and algal fronds and moves very little, and in seagrass a pale individual is effectively invisible until it turns its head. Pairs are monogamous and the male broods the eggs in a ventral pouch. The recorded range is narrow for a seahorse — Indonesia, Sabah and the Philippines — so records from further east should be treated with care. Like all seahorses it is listed on CITES Appendix II, and it is among the species taken in quantity for the dried trade.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
