The estuarine pipefish or river pipefish (''Syngnathus watermeyeri'') is a species of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

in the family

Syngnathidae The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons ('' Phycodurus'' and '' Phyllopteryx''). The name is derived from (), meaning "together", and (), meaning "jaw". The fused jaw is one of the traits that ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and has been sporadically recorded in the

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

portions of the

Kariega Uitenhage ( ; ), officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port El ...

, Kasouga, Bushmans, East Kleinemonde and West Kleinemonde rivers. It can be readily distinguished from another southern African pipefish with which it shares its habitat, ''S. temminckii'', by its much shorter snout. The estuarine pipefish is most commonly found in beds of the eelgrass '' Zostera capensis''.

Conservation status

The estuarine pipefish was declared extinct in 1994, but was rediscovered in 2006 in areas where it had not been reported in over four decades. This pipefish is

Critically Endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

due to both natural and human threats to the brackish estuaries and local eelgrass beds in which it lives.

Captive breeding

A captive population of ''Syngnathus watermeyeri'' is held at

uShaka Marine World uShaka Marine World is a theme park that opened on 30 April 2004 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It has a total capacity of 4.6 million gallons containing 10,000 animal species. History Designed by American firm Creative Kingdom ...

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

Etymology

The

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

was a female of collected in the Bushmans River and sent to

J.L.B. Smith James Leonard Brierley Smith (26 September 1897 – 8 January 1968) was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist, and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought to be long ext ...

by F.L.E. Watermeyer, whom Smith honoured in the newly described species'

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

References

river pipefish Fauna of South Africa Endemic fish of South Africa Freshwater fish of South Africa Taxa named by J. L. B. Smith river pipefish Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Syngnathiformes-stub