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Yellow-banded Pipefish
Dauin, Philippines (2012).
Yellow with orange strips. Males can be up to 19 cm and as sea horses they carry the fertilized eggs in a ventral pouch. Also in the aquarium trade.
Habitat: Tropical seas. Common among coral and in reef caves and crevices; usually found in pairs. Nearly always seen swimming upside down against ceiling of caves.
''Doryrhamphus pessuliferus'' or the ''Yellowbanded pipefish'' is native to the Western Central Pacific, from the Philippines to Australia. It is found in inshore patch reefs and sometimes estuaries up to 44m deep. It feeds on micro-crustaceans and cleanes parasites off other fish.
It occasionally makes its way into the aquarium trade, but is protected in Australia under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. It grows to 16 cm in length.
