Latin name: Hippocampus denise -- Sara Lourie & JE Randall, 2002

Common name: Pygmy Seahorse Denise

Distribution: Western Pacific

Photographic Equipment used: compact digital cameras Canon G7, G9, G10 + case Canon

Pygmy Seahorse small size, its average height does not exceed 2 cm, tail included, neck and muzzle are long, prehensile tail is very long and sometimes may have slightly darker rings. The body in general is rather thin and covered with dark spots or bumps scattered, depending on the type of gorgonian on which it lives. For this reason you can actually say that there are actually two distinct types of Hippocampus denise: the sample and that smooth warts.
When this type of pygmy seahorse is associated with the type of gorgonian Annella, which has branches thin, short and completely retractile polyps, his growths are practically replaced by a punctuation dark remember the exact design of the polyps retracted, but when it is associated with the gorgonian Acanthogorgia, who has bushy polyps, which contract but are always clearly see the rounded protuberances, its skin is covered with small bumps quite pronounced.

The most common color varies from orange to pink, but it is not uncommon in other colors from yellow ocher, brown-beige to dark purple. The difference between the sexes is quite evident: while the female has a slender body with a swelling in the abdomen at the level of small dorsal fin, in males this swelling involves the whole body. He lives mostly at depths ranging from 20 to 30 meters. The main differences with the pygmy seahorse bargibanti are: the general size, the shape of the body and face and color.

Some scholars in the past mistakenly classifying as a juvenile Hippocampus denise dell'Hippocampus bargibanti, this hypothesis was finally abandoned when they were found a few specimens of Hippocampus denise with fertilized eggs and therefore absolutely nell'addominale adults.
Her name is Denise's been awarded in honor of Denise Tackett, who first reported the existence of this type of pygmy seahorse.