About seadragons

Seadragons are beautiful, unique fish living exclusively along the southern coast of Australia. Researchers have compiled important data about seadragons through electronic tagging, photo identification, and genetic analysis. The ruby seadragon, a new species, was discovered in 2015.

Leafy and common seadragons depend on kelp beds and seagrass meadows for hunting and camouflage, and documented declines in these types of habitats across Australian waters in recent years have raised concerns about how seadragons will persist. Both common and leafy seadragons are slow swimmers and likely don’t move far within a small home range.

We have yet to better understand a variety of aspects that impact the life of seadragons.  This requires a long-term and widespread data collection. How long do seadragons live? How far are they capable of moving? How are their populations being impacted by changing ocean conditions? Seadragons’ coastal habitats are subject to pollution from land, habitat destruction from commercial fishing, and warming ocean temperatures, to name just a few human impacts. How resilient might seadragon populations be to the aggregate effects of such stressors? Due to the lack of long-term, comprehensive data on seadragon populations, there is uncertainty around the extent to which they should be considered threatened, and how they should be strategically protected across their range.