Smaller and smoother than bargibanti, on several gorgonian genera and usually deeper.
To about 16 mm, and the smaller, plainer of the two gorgonian pygmies. Twelve trunk rings and 27 to 31 tail rings. The body is smoother than Bargibant’s, with fewer and less developed polyp-like tubercles, a relatively long neck and a short snout, and it is usually plain orange, sometimes with dark flecks and faint tail bands. Females are more slender than males. It shares the reduced skeleton of Bargibant’s, so ring counts are not what you use in the field: girth and tubercles are. Fat and knobbly on a dense fan is Bargibant’s; thin, smooth and orange on a whip or an open fan is this.
Gorgonian-obligate but not tied to one genus — it has been recorded from at least eight, most often Annella, and occupancy varies from three per cent of colonies to about ten depending on which. It is not reliably a paired species, whatever the guidebooks say: on occupied fans, male-and-female pairs account for about 44 per cent, single animals 20 per cent, and groups of three or four nearly 30 per cent, with one female recorded alternating between two males. It has the deepest range of any pygmy seahorse, from 7 m to over 100, which is worth knowing for a species usually described as a shallow reef animal. Thailand and Malaysia east to Micronesia and Vanuatu. As with Bargibant’s, the documented harm from photographers is handling the sea fan rather than the strobe.
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.