IWN Daily Digest — Thursday, 22 October 2026

A spiny seahorse that scientists long treated as a single widespread species has turned out to be three, including one new to science in the Indian Ocean, which means the conservation status of the original species will need another look.

As reported by Mongabay India:

“Scientists have identified a new-to-science seahorse species from the Indian waters…”

The new species, Hippocampus amandavincentae, was described from two seahorses of about 16 cm each that were collected in 2019 from trawler bycatch at the Thoothukudi Fisheries Harbour in Tamil Nadu. Shalu Kannan of the Zoological Survey of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Regional Centre led the study, with Rajeev Raghavan of the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies and taxonomist Graham Short among the co-authors. The paper appeared in Zootaxa with a publication date of 5 August 2026, and the seahorse is named after Amanda Vincent, a co-founder of Project Seahorse.

Raghavan describes it as “possibly the only species of seahorse that is endemic to the Indian Ocean,” according to Mongabay India. Kannan said the discovery shows that “identification and understanding species is the first step towards protecting them and their habitat.”

The thorny seahorse, Hippocampus histrix, was described by Johann Jakob Kaup in 1856 from samples collected in Japan and was long treated as one widespread species. The new study divides it into three: H. histrix in the Pacific, H. jayakari in the Arabian region, and the newly described Indian Ocean species.

The Indian Ocean seahorse has a shorter snout, five coronet spines where H. histrix typically has four, and stouter spines on its trunk and tail. Molecular data show a 6–7 per cent difference between the Indian Ocean and Pacific animals, and dive photographs and genetic data from Madagascar, Mozambique and the Seychelles suggest it ranges more widely across the Indian Ocean. Seven seahorse species are now known from Indian waters.

Conservation Status

Seahorses are listed under Schedule I of India’s Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. H. histrix is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and with its range now revised, that assessment will need to be revisited.

A 2020 study estimated that about 13 million seahorses were caught as bycatch in India each year between 2015 and 2017, Mongabay India reports.

Sources: Mongabay India · Zootaxa

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