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Tiger Pipefish
Filicampus tigris (Castelnau, 1879)
A Tiger Pipefish at a depth of 18m, Shiprock, Port Hacking, New South Wales, October 1998. View larger image.
Above and below: Tiger Pipefish at a depth of 8m, Camp Cove, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales. View larger image.
The Tiger Pipefish can be recognised by its colouration. It has dark bands on the body, which often contain blue blotches. There are stripes below the eye and small white saddles along the ventral ridge.
This species grows to 35cm in length.
It is usually seen in estuaries on rubbly, sandy or weedy bottoms.
The Tiger Pipefish is endemic to (only known from) Australia. It occurs from southern Queensland to central New South Wales and from the central to north-western coasts of Western Australia.
View a map of the collecting localities of specimens in the Australian Museum Fish Collection.
Further reading
- Dawson, C.E. 1985. Indo-Pacific Pipefishes (Red Sea to the Americas). The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. Pp. 230.
- Dawson, C.E. in Gomon, M.F, J.C.M. Glover & R.H. Kuiter (Eds). 1994. The Fishes of Australia's South Coast. State Print, Adelaide. Pp. 992.
- Kuiter, R.H. 1996. Guide to Sea Fishes of Australia. New Holland. Pp. 433.
- Kuiter, R.H. 2000. Coastal Fishes of South-eastern Australia. Gary Allen. Pp. 437.
- Kuiter, R.H. 2000. Seahorses, Pipefishes and their Relatives. A Comprehensive Guide to Syngnathiformes. TMC Publishing Pp. 240.
- Paxton, J.R. & W.N. Eschmeyer (Eds). 1994. Encyclopedia of Fishes. Sydney: New South Wales University Press; San Diego: Academic Press [1995]. Pp. 240.
