''Doryrhamphus negrosensis'', commonly known as Negros pipefish, flagtail pipefish, Masthead Island pipefish or Queensland flagtail pipefish, is a species of marine fish of the family Syngnathidae. It is found in the Western Pacific Ocean, from

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

and the

Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa ...

to the

Rowley Shoals The Rowley Shoals is a group of three atoll-like coral reefs south of the Timor Sea, about west of Broome on the northwestern Australian coast, centered on , on the edge of one of the widest continental shelves in the world. Each atoll cover ...

and the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

. It lives in mud flats and reefs, both

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

and rocky, where it is often associated with

sea urchins Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

. It is a rather solitary species which may be found in pairs or small groups. It inhabits depths to , and can grow to lengths of .Myers, R.F., 1991. Micronesian reef fishes. Second Ed. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam. p. 298 Although little is known of its feeding habits, it is expected to feed on harpacticoid

copepods Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have p ...

, gammarid shrimps, and

mysids Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in this ...

, similar to other pipefish, it may also act as a cleaner fish like other species in the genus ''

Doryrhamphus ''Doryrhamphus'' is a genus of pipefishes, one of the two genera colloquially known as flagtail pipefishes and are popular in the aquarium trade. The members of this genus are native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans where they inhabit reef envir ...

''. This species is

ovoviviparous Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...

, with males carrying eggs before giving birth to live young. Males may brood at 4.3 cm. It is a small bluish to bluish-grey pipefish which has a pale stripe along the dorsal side of the head and snout, and a dark fan-like

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

which has white margins and an orange base.

References

Further reading