A global revision of the Seahorses Hippocampus Rafinesque 1810 (Actinopterygii: Syngnathiformes): Taxonomy and biogeography with recommendations for further research
Author
Sara A. Lourie
Author
Riley A. Pollom
Author
Sarah J. Foster
text
Zootaxa
2016
4146
1
1
66
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.4146.1.1
f27bf01d-bf27-4e86-b2ba-81b84931d348
1175-5326
268078
35E0DECB-20CE-4295-AE8E-CB3CAB226C70
H. breviceps
Peters 1869
English common names. Short-head Seahorse
, knobby seahorse, short-headed seahorse, short-snouted seahorse.
Holotype.
ZMB 7082 (missing in 2001).
FIGURE 7.
Range map for
Hippocampus breviceps
.
See Figure 2 caption for further details.
Type
locality.
Adelaide
,
South
Australia
.
Synonyms.
H. tuberculatus
Castelnau 1875
.
Distribution.
Australia
(south and west,
Tasmania
).
Notes.
Kuiter (2001)
recognizes separate species to the west (
H. tuberculatus
) and east (
H. breviceps
) of the Great Australian Bight. Our data do not show the meristic differences that Kuiter cites in support of this separation (see Appendix C), and there are no genetic data yet available to shed light on the question. Further molecular work is needed to determine whether there exist sufficient differences between these two disjunct populations of
H. breviceps
to warrant the validity of
H. tuberculatus
as a distinct species. For now we accept the validity of a single species only.