We must have the eye, to locate the tiny seahorse-pygmy!
We must have the eye, to locate the tiny seahorse-pygmy!

Here is the seahorse-pygmy

#Leyte #Philippines

  Philippines: Visayas - February 2008

Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text: 

Come on, a little article just to help you see the tiny and very shy seahorse-pygmy that I had photographed in Sogod Bay...since many of you have been unable to find him.

A tiny seahorse, hiding in the gorgonians...

This tiny "sea horse" lives hidden in gorgonians, whose appearance and color it imitates. L'Hippocampus bargibanti has little pinkish-mauve bumps, to better deceive its predators and... underwater photographers!

I could admire this one in Sogod Bayin the Philippines, in the south of the island of Leyte.

We must have the eye, to locate the tiny seahorse-pygmy!
It is necessary to have the eye, to locate the tiny seahorse-pygmy!

Without our Filipino guide Pedro and his lynx eye, we would never have been able to distinguish the creature, wrapped around its gorgonian branch. The famous seahorse-pygmy is about as big as the nail of my little finger...

Obviously, with my compact camera, focusing on such a small subject in the interlacing "branches" of gorgonian is a bit of a mission impossible.

Here it is again!

Updated 15 April 2008 : I add the magnified and processed image on the way back, below... The quality is not extraordinary, but we can distinguish it better, no?

This is the first time I manage to photograph a pygmy seahorse... Not easy, it is not bigger than the nail of my little finger (Sogod Bay, Leyte, January-February 2008)
This is the first time I manage to photograph a seahorse-pygmy... Not easy, it is not bigger than the nail of my little finger (Sogod Bay, Leyte, January-February 2008)

Updated: May 2016

About eight years after this very first picture made at that time with my modest compact camera, I have made a lot of progress with seahorses... 😄 I invite you to visit the link below, with pictures taken at Canon Eos 7D, in March 2016, in Triton Bay (West Papua, Indonesia):

→ Shy like a pygmy seahorse

Pygmy Seahorse bargibanti. (Triton Bay, West Papua, Indonesia, March 2016.)
Pygmy seahorse bargibanti. (Triton Bay, West Papua, Indonesia, March 2016)

  Philippines: Visayas - February 2008

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  1. Bon, aujourd’hui, je me contenterai d’un haussement de sourcils, mais très grand….

    Malgré tes efforts, toujours pas localisé l’hippocampe, mais l’infiniment petit recèle des beautés inaccessibles probablement aux seuls initiés aquatiques, et mon oeil ne sait pas voir….mam

  2. C’est bien ce que je disais… pas facile de le trouver !!
    Faute de patience ou de vue… les moins acharnés partent sans en avoir vu ne serait ce qu’un morceau de queue !
    Good continuation
    Pim’s

  3. @ Pim’s :

    Eh oui ! C’était l’une de mes toutes premières tentatives pour immortaliser un hippocampe-pygmée. Depuis, j’ai fait des progrès.

    J’ai appris à inspecter minutieusement les gorgones, et à être patiente, à prendre le temps nécessaire pour réussir une photo… Tu trouveras l’ensemble de mes articles contenant des images de ces charmants “chevaux de mer”, en cliquant sur le mot-clé sea horse, in the right column.

    🙄

  4. C’est ça, alors, que tu cherchais à Derawan pendant le muckdive ?! Effectivement, maintenant je vois à quoi ça ressemble ! 😯 😀

  5. @Guilhem: Eh oui… Fait une recherche avec le mot “hippocampe”ou clique sur le mot-clé hippocampe à droite. Car depuis ce post, j’en ai photographié beaucoup d’autres, et j’ai réussi de bien meilleures images!
    😉

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