Back a bit closer to home, after spending a couple weeks in Sulawesi and not finding a thorny seahorse myself (there was a few seen by other divers). It was with interest that during my time back home I was in contact with local marine scientist, Dave Harasti. He invited me up to Nelson Bay to video a new species of anglerfish and the thorny seahorse (Hippocampus histrix).

Nelson Bay is the only place in Australia where this tropical seahorse has been documented! An individual female was found in 2007 by Dave, but a new female specimen has been hanging around the Bay for the past few months and Dave has been watching and documenting her growth. In two months she doubled in size and for 2 months she lived on a stick that Dave had pushed into the sand to mark her location!

Although we didn’t find the small new species of anglerfish that Dave discovered (which is currently undergoing taxonomic classification), we did find the thorny seahorse and I was the first to video this seahorse and only the second to photograph such a specimen in Australia! So I was pretty stoked on that. I also spotted a rare tropical snake eel blenny (Xiphasia setifer) which was very cool to watch hunting through the sponge gardens of The Pipeline.

When not travelling and trying to photograph every seahorse in the world, Dave is working as the research scientist for the Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Park, while also completing his PhD on the effectiveness of marine protected areas for seahorse conservation, under the supervision of my old supervisor, Dr Bill Gladstone at the University of Newcastle.

For those that know Dave you may have seen or heard about his best friend – Scuba Snoopy! So I made a video about our dive together. You can check out their progress on photographing marine life all around the world on his website www.daveharasti.com