The Leafy Sea Dragon

          You're probably looking at this picture and thinking it's a colorful stick floating in water, but this my friend, is the incredible Leafy Sea Dragon. This is not actually a dragon, but it's a type of sea horse! These sea creatures get their name (leafy sea dragon) because of the way they look of course. If you look at the picture above you can see that their appendages look similar to leaves. They use these "leaves" to camouflage and make them selves look like a floating plant. Although it may not seem like it, these animals don't have any scales. Instead the have these bony plates all over them to still provide protection. 

             In the picture above I circled Western and Southern Australia, which is where the Leafy Sea Dragon lives. When I say Australia, you're probably thinking of a super warm place, but it actually gets pretty chilly down under. The leafy sea dragon lives in waters that are 55 to 67 degrees F (13 to 19 degrees C). I don't know about you, but that seems pretty cold to me. 

Upper left: Rocky reef, Upper right: seagrass meadow, Lower left: Sand Patches, Lower right: Seaweed bed

             The four places in the pictures above are the main areas where Leafy Sea Dragons live. As you can see, the have to live pretty close to the surface. They are found in a surface up to 25 m (82 ft). Seems like a very comfortable home!

             Leafy Sea Dragons love to eat Crustaceans like Mysids, Sea lice, and Plankton. A weird thing about them is that they have NO TEETH! So how do they eat? Simple! They use that long pipe looking snout to suck up their food. It can't be huge though, because as you can see, their mouth is not big enough to eat anything huge. 

              REPRODUCTION!!! A very very important part to life. Sea Dragons go through this process in a odd manner, just like a sea horse would. The female is the one who lays the eggs first, and she lays about 250-300 eggs. Um woah. After she has these eggs, she rubs them under her mates tale, and pushes those eggs into his skin. I guess you could say the male "gets pregnant", but he actually is just holding these eggs for 6 to 8 weeks. 

              So after these long long weeks of holding these eggs, the male "gives birth". He rubs them onto rocks carefully enough to just get them off. He only lets a few out at a time and that can take hours, even DAYS. 

              FUN FACTS!

              After a leafy sea dragon gives birth to their eggs, it completely abandons them, making them vulnerable to predators out in the big blue sea. So because of this, only about 1 in 20 make it after birth. 

              Its tail is half its body length!

              These awesome animals are closely watched and cared for because they are so rare and fragile. Touching them in a certain way can seriously injure them, and possibly kill them.

              Leafy Sea Dragons change color to match their surroundings or even if their stressed. 

              They have super sharp spines that run along their body to protect them from anything wanting to attack them!