During consecutive trips in late 2005 to the Solomon islands and Fiji I discovered pygmy seahorses that had previously been unknown by the well established dive operators. I dived for two weeks aboard the Bilikiki in the solomons and a week aboard the Fiji Aggressor both of which have been running for ten years and were unaware of these miniscule fish. In the solomons I first happened upon a pair of dark brown pygmies directly under the moored boat at 14m. Although a fairly exposed site the two seahorses would happily swim relatively large distances between microhabitats. Later on the same trip I found another pair in only 4m at a muck dive site which was much more sheltered. They lived on a rock which was densely covered in algal turf and small hydroid stalks.

Several weeks later I was diving in Fiji in a very exposed channel and shocked to find not one but five pygmies living on sand covered rock with very sparse algal turf again at 14m. One of these was heavily pregnant and fairly large.

Having seen so many of these pygmies and only one month later seeing the white Pontohi in Indonesia I am confident this south west pacific group represent distinct species. They are distinguished by a dark brown colouration, colourless filaments on the head and back and most importantly small red dots that run down the side of the head and body. The tail is colourless and has small white dots down the edges.