Long-snouted Seahorse

Photo: Mario García Ferreira · © all rights reserved

El Ancón's long-snouted seahorses represent one of the healthiest monitored populations in the western Mediterranean, with individuals photographed in citizen science surveys enabling population estimates that have been used to calibrate wider park health assessments. The species is monogamous and males carry the young, making it possible to observe pregnant males at their thickest in May and June before releasing juveniles that immediately cling to posidonia blades at the meadow canopy level. Coloration varies from pale yellow through olive green to near-black, all of which are camouflage matches for the varying hue of their posidonia holdfasts.