Working on a boat last week in Seattle gave me a chance to do one of my favorite things - lay face-down on the dock and see what interesting stuff is going on underwater. Floating docks are great because one can see many marine creatures of Puget Sound living on the dock floatation that ordinarily you would have to dive to see, or wait for an extreme low tide to access. Lying face-down on a warm dock with your head hanging over the edge gives one a nice aquarium quality view of things close up.

I was quietly watching my little section of float when I noticed a Pipefish right in front of my face - about 18 inches away. Cool ! Bay Pipefish (our only species here) is a close realative of the more famous Seahorse. It's modus operandi is appearing to be a piece of eelgrass, which it does an excellent job of. If I had'nt been still and seen it move I never would have noticed it.

This particular fish was about 7 inches long. I have come across a few specimens over the years but have never had such a clear view, so I got to see some interesting things about how it moves. First of all it appeared to be drifting slowly sideways with the tide in an upright positstion. Except there was no current at the time - the fish was moving, but without the typical wiggly fish-like movements. Upon closer focus I realized its fins were moving at a blur - at a hummingbird level of speed (it seemed). The only reason I was able to see this was becasue the water was perfectly clear and the pipefish was nicely lit by a ray of sunlight .The fins on a pipefish are tiny , but I could see it's little dorsal and pectoral fins all working at this high speed. From 2 ft away it was the pefect imitation of a drifting chunk of eelgrass.

As with the other Pipefish I've come across this one was quite 'tame'. I stuck my finger down to it and it poked at me with its little tubular mouth. But it never blew its cover, just kept still and sneakily 'drifted' about. (It reminded me of 'tame' Ptarmigan up in the high Cascades which will play their camouflage card right to the end - I was able to actually pick up a Ptarmigan on one occassion). Just as I was about to leave a small Stickleback (small but pugnacious fish) zoomed by and the pipefish responded dramatically - it moved rapidly sideways with no body movement and then with one rapid flick turned about to face the Stickleback - which apparently did't even notice it. The fact it could move that quickly with only those tiny little fins was pretty amazing. Later I read that Seahorses, which swim in a similar fashion, can move their dorsal fin at about 35 beats per second - right in hummingbird range.



So if it flaps like a Hummer, hides like a Ptarmigan , lives in the Sound and looks like eelgrass it might be a Pipefish.





Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa