SPECIAL DELIVERY AS MALE PIPEFISH GIVES BIRTH

Following an unexpected breeding boom, the keepers at Bristol Aquarium are celebrating the arrival of dozens of baby pipefish.

More than 50 tiny, five-centimetre-long broadnose pipefish babies have already been born at the Harbourside attraction with potentially hundreds more due imminently.

The newborns are being looked after in the quarantine breeding area and one of the aquarium’s special nursery displays.

Like seahorses, which are closely related to pipefish, the male incubates the eggs and gives birth to the young. Rows of eggs are laid by the female onto a special pad on the male’s belly, and here the eggs develop.

Olivia Orchart, working at Bristol Aquarium, said: “This is one of two native species of pipefish we look after here at the aquarium.

“We have 12 adults, of which two are due to give birth any time now and several others are showing clear signs of being pregnant.

“Each male can give birth to up to 200 young so we could well be in for a real baby boom over the coming weeks.

“When they hatch the babies are identical miniature versions of their parents, only a fraction of the size,” she added.

The young are born free swimming with relatively little or no yolk sac, and begin feeding immediately. They are completely independent from the time they hatch.

Pipefish feed on small crustaceans such as mysid shrimps and tiny creatures called copepods. An adult greater pipefish needs to eat several hundred tiny shrimps in one day.

UK waters are home to six different species of pipefish and two species of seahorse.

In the wild pipefish live in relatively shallow waters over sandy seabeds or rough ground among seaweed and eel grasses.

Pipefish are extremely slow moving fish and have developed a hard, armour-like outer skeleton to help protect them against would-be predators, similar to seahorses.

They are often present in rockpools although their seaweed-like bodies mean they are extremely well camouflaged and easily overlooked.