{"id":169066,"date":"2022-11-15T13:01:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T23:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=169066"},"modified":"2022-11-15T13:01:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T23:01:58","slug":"weedy-seadragon-born-at-waikiki-aquarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/11\/15\/weedy-seadragon-born-at-waikiki-aquarium\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare weedy seadragon born at Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>

\"Baby<\/p>\n

For the first time in its 118-year history, the Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium<\/a> has successfully bred a weedy seadragon, placing it among a small, select group of aquariums worldwide to breed this distinctive fish.<\/p>\n

Found in Southern Australia and Tasmania, weedy seadragons<\/a> are in the family Syngnathidae and are relatives of seahorses and pipefishes.<\/p>\n

“This is an incredible achievement for our team since starting our seadragon husbandry program 14 years ago,” said Andrew Rossiter<\/strong>, Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium director. “Weedy seadragons are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, and we couldn\u2019t be more excited.”<\/p>\n

Like seahorses, male weedy seadragons brood the eggs; however, the eggs are incubated on the underside of the tail instead of in a pouch. Weedy seadragons perform an elaborate mating dance, spinning snout-to-snout and moving up and down in a water column to transfer the eggs from the female onto the male\u2019s tail, where they are then fertilized.<\/p>\n

Appropriately enough, the Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium\u2019s weedy seadragons had a successful egg transfer just prior to Father\u2019s Day on June 11, 2022. The male carried the eggs until the fully formed juvenile hatched on August 2. The baby seadragon has grown rapidly and is currently four inches in length and is being carefully monitored and cared for behind the scenes. Visitors to the Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium can see this newest addition via a live camera feed located in the aquarium galleries.<\/p>\n

The Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium has been administered by the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> since 1919.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Waik\u012bk\u012b Aquarium is among a small group of aquariums worldwide to breed the fish, which is notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[262,9,302],"class_list":["post-169066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-marine-science","tag-uh-manoa","tag-waikiki-aquarium","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169066"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169088,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169066\/revisions\/169088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}