Rough Ghost Pipefish or Thin Ghost Pipefish? (Lembeh)

Ghost pipefish from the Nudi Falls in the Lembeh Strait.

In the older "Tropical Pacific Reef Fish ID" book, this is down as a "thin ghost pipefish", Solenostomus sp., possibly a variation of the robust ghost pipefish, Solenostomus cyanopterus, but with long tail base.

Does anyone know if there is later info about this? Is this still presented in the same way in Allen and Erdmann's later "Reef Fishes of the East Indies" (which I don't have yet) or has been either rolled into Solenostomus cyanopterus or given a new species name?

Hi Nick,

Reef fishes of the East Indies lists 6 species, including the robust ghost pipefish with pictures from Bali and Lembeh. The latter is perhaps a bit more similar to yours but I don't find any to be a good match. In the book the upper edge of the snout and head form a straight line, while your picture shows a distinct "head bump". The only one in the book that has that is Solenostomus halimeda (Halimeda ghost pipefish), but that has a shorter and more robust hind quarters. I think the statement "more research required" very much still applies. Either this species is morphologically variable or there are more species than are currently described.

Bart

I agree with Bart above. We (the guides and I) would almost definitely called this a Robust. It looks like a small male, so maybe a juvenile. Was there a larger female close by?

Thanks guys. I don't remember seeing another close by, but there's every chance I missed one.

My gut feeling is that it's probably a variation of a robust, or just a juvenile.

So with only 5 described species listed on WoRMS, I'm wondering if the 6th one in the East Indies book is still this "thin" ghost pipefish, or maybe the other Solenostomus sp. they were calling "velvet" ghost pipefish?

I got some video a while back of what I would call a real Velvet Ghost Pipefish. The are actually thicker than Robusts.